


C-24: The Truth about Mars

by TreeOfLife1997



Series: Semper Fi Trilogy [1]
Category: Doom (2005), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Deimos (moon), Doom!Trek - Freeform, Gen, John Grimm is Leonard McCoy, Mars (planet), Martian!Jim, Phobos (moon), Reaper!Bones, Tarsus Colonies, Tarsus IV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2018-05-04 05:57:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 27,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5323058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TreeOfLife1997/pseuds/TreeOfLife1997
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonard 'Bones' McCoy liked to think John 'Reaper' Grimm had died a long time ago. A name hidden deep in the past, just one of the many names he had used over the years... Well his first name, his birth name, the name he had when the whole nightmare that is C-24 began. But when a mission goes wrong, C-24 and the life of John 'Reaper' Grimm comes back to haunt him but not in a way he thought possible. He's not the only crewmember with a secret and a fake name.</p>
<p>Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or Doom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Leonard 'Bones' McCoy stood on the transporter pad, alongside Spock and a small security team as they waited for the Captain, who was currently speaking to Scotty at the transporter control panel. Growling slightly, Leonard glanced at Spock and the security team, he hated using the transporter it reminded him to much of the Ark.

And the Ark was linked to some memories Leonard would rather not like to be reminded of every other day… What happened at Olduvai was something he hoped would never be repeated.

John 'Reaper' Grimm, as he had once been known as a long time ago, had tried so hard to forget that life and the horrors that had gone with it. He covered his tracks the best he could. Kept the truth about his DNA a secret.

As much as the world had changed since that fatefully mission, he knew the moment Starfleet or any other organisation found out about his altered DNA, he'd be their new lab rat or worse. His worst fear was someone who was willing to try and replicate C-24 would find out about him and replicate his DNA.

That wouldn’t end well… Mars had proven that all those years ago. And it would only be a thousand times worse if it happened now, where the population of an average planet was a hundred thousand times higher than that of Mars.

It’d be a massacre.

It’d be the being of the apocalypse that movie seemed so fond of telling stories about.

After all Marcus had been proof of the length some would go to ensure war. A war they would win and a war that would leave no survivors on the opposing side. Leonard had destroyed all records and samples he had of Khan’s blood and he only wished he had more time to study it.

It was possible Khan had been genetically modified using C-24 or something similar.

Leonard snapped out of his musing as the Captain's laugh echoed around the transporter room and he watched as Jim slapped Scotty shoulder lightly before moving over to the transporter pad and standing beside him.

"Cheer up, Bones." Jim grins. "It'll be over before you know it."

Leonard rolls his eyes, not sure whether his best friend was talking about the transporter or the mission they were about to embark on.

It was common knowledge that Leonard hadn't wanted anything to do with this mission. He was more than content to stay on the ship and prepare for the endless possibilities of how the mission could and would go wrong.

It was a simple mission really, a man by the name of John Gill, a cultural observer, had many years ago travelled to a planet called Ekos, in the M-43 Alpha system. All the Enterprise had to do was find him and return him to the closest star base. From there he would be sent back to Earth as soon as was humanly possible.

The planet had been primitive and warlike when it had first been discovered. But when a federation vessel that had been sent to pick up John from the planet a few months ago, had been shot at with a rocket with a thermonuclear warhead, Starfleet had concluded that John Gill had intervened with the natural development of the native culture and people… Not that Starfleet had wanted to believe it at first.

It was a technology far too advanced for the planets inhabitants to have developed it by themselves, so the only logical conclusion was John had interfered with the natural development of the culture. John Gill had taught at Starfleet academy for many years and all who were taught by him were left in awe.

He was well known and well respected. He was a living legend among those who served in Starfleet and many looked up to him as a role model. He knew Starfleet's regulations like the back of his hand, yet he broke the Prime Directive.

Leonard also knew for a fact Jim respected the man. Jim had been over the moon when he found out John Gill would be teaching one of his classes in the first year, a class Jim had aced just like all his other classes. Leonard couldn't help but wonder what Jim would do if they had to return John to the ship by force.

It was hard to see someone you idolised, turn into something you could never have dreamed of… Even in the pits of hell.

"Energise." Jim commands.

~*~

The moment they materialised on the planets surface, Leonard knew something was wrong. The hair on the back on his neck stood on end and he could almost feel the gaze of something watching them, like it was burning into him.

"Phasers on standby." Jim orders, having gotten the same feeling as Leonard had.

The area around them seemed completely empty and bare.

They were surrounded by rocky hills and piles of rubble. Scattered among the hillsides were what appeared to be tunnel entrances, framed by wooden posts. Glancing at the ground around them, Leonard frowned at the twin metal tracks that twisted their way through the rocky landscape.

It reminded him of an old Earth mining district, used in the age of steam trains and house drawn carts, which he had learnt about in school as a boy. And thanks to the fact both his parents were archaeologists and had made sure he knew almost everything about the Earth’s past.

"According to our present location," Spock speaks up, pulling out his tricorder. "The village Mr. Gill was sent to observe is two miles east of here."

Jim snorts. "I think it's fair to say it's not going to be there, Spock. After all we should be in the middle of forest right now, not a nineteenth century styled mining district!"

For a moment Leonard was surprised that Jim knew what century style the mining district came from, but then he remembered Jim was a genius, which he had proved countless times at the academy and on almost every mission they had since.

Catching a flash of reflected light out the corner of his eye, Leonard turns and stares at one of the hills.

"Get down!" Jim yells from behind him.

Before Leonard has a chance to even blink, he is knocked to ground by Jim, who's yelling something in his ear. But Leonard doesn't hear him, he's too fixated on the cut on Jim's hand which has just healed itself in a matter of seconds.

"BONES!" Jim yells in his ears, bringing Leonard back to reality and the sounds of gun fire and bullets ricocheting off the ground around them.

"What?" Leonard answers unintelligently, still trying to come to terms with what he'd just seen.

"Are you hurt?" Jim questions.

Leonard only just held back a snort. It had been a long time since he had truly felt pain. His body healed itself so fast, often the pain didn't even have time to register before it was gone… His body healed just as fast as he'd seen Jim's hand heal only moments before.

"Your hand-" Leonard begins to speak.

"Not now, Bones," Jim answers. "Whatever injuries I have, you can treat later, but we need to find cover now. We've already lost two people! If we stay here we're going to lose even more."

Jim quickly gets to his feet and crouches down in one swift movement, scanning the area around them as he does so. Moving just as quickly, Leonard crouches down beside Jim and looks round too. Spock and the rest of the security team that weren't dead, were hiding behind a pile of large rocks and boulders. Even from where he was sheltering beside Jim, Leonard could tell most of them had injuries, he could smell their blood.

He and Jim were currently protected by a small ridge, but it wouldn't offer them shelter for long. Whoever or whatever were shooting at them, were moving and getting closer and closer by the second.

"Cover?!" Leonard exclaims. "Where the hell are we going to find cover here?! We're in the middle of a god damn quarry!"

"You think I don't know that Bones?!" Jim demands, still scanning the area. "We're sitting ducks! If we don't move, if we don't try and get away from here, we're all going to die!"

"Where can we go, Jim?" Leonard snaps back. "The moment we move, we're going to give away our positions."

"What, so we should just sit here and wait for them to get even closer-" Jim stops speaking as he ducks down out the way of a ricocheting bullet. "If they get any closer, the little cover we currently have is going to be useless!"

Before Leonard has a chance to reply, Spock's yell stops him.

"Captain," Spock yells across from where he and a security officer are hiding. "I have managed to bypass some of the interference disrupting the communicators. An emergency signal has been sent to the ship."

"Very good, Mr. Spock," Jim yells back, a smile gracing his face briefly. "Prepare to be beamed up."

"Yes sir." The voices of those still alive answer.

But it doesn't take long for Jim and Leonard to work out something is wrong.

As the rest of the team beam up, all the can do is watch. Jim pulls his communicator from his pocket and stares at the bullet lodged in the middle of it. Glancing down, Leonard sees his own communicator broken on the ground, where it must have fallen when Jim pushed him to the ground and out of the way of the bullets.

"You have got to be kidding me." Leonard hears Jim curse, before his world goes black.

~*~

Leonard groans as he forces his eyes open, glancing down at his side he sees a bullet hole and dried blood staining his medical Starfleet issue top. He doesn't even bother to see if there's an injury, because he knows there wasn't going to be one. Shifting Leonard pulls at the chains securing his wrists behind his back, but they won't break.

"It's no use," Jim voice sounds from somewhere on his left. "I've already tried breaking them. The chains are reinforced."

Leonard glances round and stares at Jim for a moment in shock, before anger quickly takes its place. Jim sat with his head resting back against the wall behind him. His golden shirt was covered in blood. From where Leonard was sitting he couldn't see any of Jim's injuries, but he swore he'd kill whoever did this to his best friend. The only person who Leonard had ever truly let get close to him after what had happened all those years ago on Mars and the death of his twin sister a handful of years later.

"Don't worry," Jim carries on speaking as he moves his head and looks at Leonard. "I'm not hurt… Well not anymore."

"What do you mean?" Leonard demands, trying to see Jim's head to see if he'd suffered a head injury, which could be causing his delusions.

"I know you saw it." Jim answers. "When I pushed you out of the way of that bullet. You saw my hand heal."

Leonard thinks for a moment then it all comes rushing back. Jim pushing him to the ground. Jim's hand healing just as fast as his own C-24 enhanced body heals.

"I've been lying to you Bones… I've been lying to everyone for a long time." Jim mutters, before Leonard had a chance to answer. "But you have to understand, I didn't have much of a choice… If anyone ever found out. Well… It happened once before and the results were catastrophic."

"What are you talking about, Jim?" Leonard asks, trying to push down a sense of hope which was quickly filling him. Could it be possible? Could Jim be like him?

Jim laughs slightly but there was no humour in it. "You're going to think I'm mad when I tell you this… I've been meaning to tell you ever since Khan, but I never found the right moment."

Jim pauses for a second and takes a deep breath, Leonard watches him closely whilst waiting for him to continue.


	2. Chapter 2

“My real name isn’t James Tiberius Kirk,” Jim began. “My birth name is Tiberius Phobos Deimos. My family and friends just used to call me Ty though. And before you point it out, I’m named after the moons of Mars or more accurately they’re named after me.”

Leonard shot Jim a disbelieving look.

“What?” Jim questions, getting defensive. “There was no way I was going to let them name the moons of my home planet something stupid like K53Alpha or whatever stupid names it was they came up with!”

Leonard just raised an eyebrow. “And I thought your ego couldn’t get any bigger.”

“Shut up, Bones!” Jim glared at Leonard. “As I was saying, I wasn’t born in space, either. I was born on Mars, one thousand, two hundred and one point seven five human years ago, give or take a few months. By Martian standards, I’m not even a quarter of the way through my life yet. I was born at a colony known as Tarsus IV, it was the largest colony on Mars, home to eight thousand Martian’s.”

Jim pauses for a moment. “There were five colonies. Tarsus I, Tarsus II, Tarsus III, Tarsus IV and Tarsus V. As I said Tarsus IV was the largest with eight thousand, then it was Tarsus III which was home to just over six thousand, then Tarsus V which had a population of five thousand. Tarsus I and II both had a population of four thousand each. We had a small population over all, but then my species lives far longer than you would think possible.

“That’s another thing I lied about.” Jim sighs. “I’m not human. I’m a Martian. We share a lot of traits with humans… If you didn’t look at our DNA you’d think we were human. I doubt I need to explain how humans have twenty-three pairs of chromosomes in their DNA, you’re a doctor after all, Bones. Well I, as a Martian have twenty-four pairs. And that twenty-fourth chromosome you could say makes me superhuman, immortal even.”

Leonard nodes, a small smile playing at his lips. Jim was like him, only he was born with not injected with C-24.

“So like I was saying, Mars had five colonies and I lived in the fourth and that’s where it started.” Jim paused for a moment. “There was a man who lived down the street from me, his name was Kodos. He was a bit strange and everyone left him alone. One of my friends used to joke he was a mad scientist and completely batshit crazy. And the truth was, he was. I mean he had to be crazy to do what he did…

“Nobody knows for sure how he did it, but he created some sort of signal which mutated a certain gene in our DNA. It was a gene linked to violence… Everyone has the capability to be violent and do terrible things, but not everyone has that gene. Tarsus IV had a population of eight thousand and four thousand of that population had that gene.

“When the gene mutates, it changes you.” Jim rested his head back against the wall once more. “Four thousand people changed in to blood thirsty monsters in a matter of hours. They killed everything they crossed paths with. They didn’t kill for food or survival, they killed for pleasure and for sport. They killed because they could and they didn’t stop.

“They weren’t Martian’s anymore, they were monsters. You couldn’t reason with them. They killed and they destroyed everything and they wouldn’t stop. They didn’t care whether you were male or female or an adult or a child… they even killed babies, new-borns. Everything with a heartbeat, they killed. The only way to stop them was to kill them and that was easier said than done.”

~*~

“Ty!” A women’s voice yelled. “You’re going to be late for school.”

“I’m coming, mother.” Ty yelled back, as he grabbed his school bag off the floor and run out his room. He jumped down the stairs and dodged around his older brother and raced towards the front door where his mother was waiting.

His mother smiled at him and reached forward and tried to flatten his blond hair which was sticking up at odd angles, but it stubbornly refused to lie flat.

“You have hair just like your fathers.” She muttered fondly.

Ty smiled at his mother. “When’s father coming home, mother?”

“Soon,” His mother answers. “He’ll be home in time for the holidays, he promised.”

Ty nodded. “Oh, mother, there’s a new combat teaching assistant at school, he’s really good. You should have seen him fight our teacher! I’ve never seen anyone fight like that before!”

Ty’s mother laughed, as they head towards the hover car parked outside the house. “He must be good, if he could fight your teacher, that old man really knows his stuff.”

“He’s definitely the best teacher.” Ty grinned, as he got in the front passenger seat. “Didn’t he teach you and father?”

“He did.” Ty’s mother answered. “And he was a fantastic teacher… Although I’ll admit he was a little on the aggressive side at times.”

Ty nodded and moved to switch on the radio. As the chronometer hit the hour the morning news report started, Ty glanced out the window watching the houses as they sped past them and people on their way to work.

As usually the news wasn’t reporting anything of major importance. There had been a couple of thefts and a few disturbances during the previous night in the local area and a minor traffic collision on the outskirts of the colony, again nothing too serious.

As the weather report started, Ty glanced skywards. It looked pretty clear, but a storm had been forecast to appear later that day, blowing in from the east with an area of low pressure. Heavy rain and strong winds were to be expected. A yellow flood alert at been given for the opposite side of the colony, which had been built on lower lying land and sometimes flooded during heavy rain.

“Doesn’t sound too good.” Ty’s mother muttered, as she pulled up outside the school.

“It’s only rain, mother.” Ty answered.

“I know, sweetie.” Ty’s mother answered. “But rain was the last thing I wanted today.”

“It could be worse.” Ty pointed out.

“It could,” Ty’s mother reached across in her seat and kissed his forehead. “Have a good day at school and try not to get into any more fights.”

“It’s always a good day, if my friends are in,” Ty answers. “And I’ll try, but Shinn annoys me.”

Ty’s mother smiled slightly. “I’ll pick you up at four. Comm me if there’s a change of plans.”

“Yes, mother.” Ty answered, rolling his eyes as he got out the hover car and shut the door.

“Ty!” A voice exclaimed and a blonde headed blur crashed into him.

“Lenore!” Ty answered with the same enthusiasm.

Lenore let go of him and stepped back. “You’ll never believe what I heard.”

“Well, I won’t know unless you tell me.” Ty answered, when it became clear Lenore wasn’t going to say anymore.

“I tell you when we get to class.” Lenore answered glancing round. “Trust me, you’re going to want to hear about this!”

“Well then,” Ty grinned. “Let’s get to class.”

~*~

It was the last class before lunch and Ty was sitting beside Lenore at their usual table when the sounds of gunfire seemed to echo through the building from outside. There was a moments silence as everyone in the room froze. More gunfire sounded from outside, followed by a scream which didn’t sound Martian.

“Everyone stay where you are!” The teacher yelled, as a wave of unease swept through the class.

There was more gunfire and the sounds of someone screaming. Only this time the scream sounded Martian, unlike the previous scream. Ty and Lenore glanced at each other and suddenly there was silence once more. It was an eerie type of silence which seemed to hang in the air around them.

“Attention all staff and students,” The intercom suddenly bursts to life breaking through the silent air. “Due to a number of students falling ill with an unknown illness, the school is now closed. Please make your way to the nearest exit and any students or staff feeling ill, please report to the gym for transportation to the Cole Medical Facility. If any students begin to feel ill once they have returned home, please inform a parent are guardian right away. Good day.”

As soon as the announcement was finished everyone got to their feet and packed away their things. To many an unknown illness spreading around the colony would cause panic, but to the inhabitants of Mars it was something they prepared for, just like for fire drills and earthquake alarms.

Due to the Martian DNA, illness was uncommon and when Martians became ill, they recovered within a couple of days. Sometimes Martians didn’t even know that had gotten ill, their bodies recovered so quickly. It was the same with cuts and bruises, their bodies healed almost instantly.

But every once in a while an illness would come along which the Martian body couldn’t get rid of or recover from. A year or two before Ty had been born was when the last illness like that had swept through the colony, it killed nearly two hundred people before the cure was found. Of course this may not be like that, it might have been an illness which took slightly longer to overcome.

“I don’t like this,” Lenore muttered, as the two of them left the classroom together. “It just doesn’t feel right.”

“What do you mean?” Ty asked.

Lenore shook her head. “I… I don’t feel so good, Ty.”

“What’s wrong?” Ty asked.

“My skin, it feels like theirs something crawling under it.” Lenore answered.

“Maybe you should go to the gym, Lenore.” Ty answered. “Maybe you’ve got the illness.”

Lenore nodded. “Walk with me.”

“Of course.” Ty replied. “The chances are you’ve passed it on to me anyway.”

Lenore gave him a weak smile. “Sorry, Ty.”

“If I die because you have, I’m coming back to haunt you.” Ty threatened in a joking manner.

“Everyone knows there’s no such things as ghosts,” Lenore answered. “So I’m not too worried.”

Ty snorted. “I’ll find a way.”

“And the sad thing is, I believe you.” Lenore replied, grinning at Ty.

When the two of them reached the gym, they found the doors were shut and blue medical tap covered the entrances.

“Well that’s useful,” Ty muttered. “They tell you to go to the gym and the gym is sealed off. I wonder what genius came up with that!”

“Ty!” Lenore suddenly gasped, doubling over.

“Lenore!” Ty exclaimed grabbing her shoulder.

Suddenly Lenore dropped to the floor and Ty took a step back as Lenore body began to shake and change. Ty had never before seen anything like it. Her skin began to change colour and her body began to deform and lose it humanoid appearances.

“Lenore?” Ty questioned warily, taking another step back.

The mutant that had once been known as Lenore, let out a growl and got to its feet and turned towards Ty, who cursed and turned and run as fast as he could. The mutant didn’t even hesitate before chasing after him.


	3. Chapter 3

Ty didn’t stop running.

He ran through the streets, all around him the colony was falling into complete chaos. Martian’s were mutating in the street, while others who had yet to fully mutate looked like zombies, with blood dripping from their mouths and flesh stuck in their teeth.

Ty had no idea whether Lenore or the monster Lenore had turned into was still following him and he didn’t dare stop to see if it was.

He nearly hadn’t made it out of the School alive, he could still feel the sting of the mutant’s claws as they ripped through his back cutting to the bone and making him feel dizzy from the blood loss as he body hurried to heal itself as he carried on running.

Screams echoed around him and mixed with the roars of the mutants, as they hunted those fleeing down like animals. Ty ducked down behind a hover car and held his breath as a mutant run past chasing after a Martian women, who was clutching her baby to her chest in an attempt to keep it from harm.

And all Ty could do was keeping praying that this was some nightmare he was stuck in and any moment his alarm was going to go off and wake him and everything would be back to normal and none of this would be real, but he knew it was real. He’d watched one of his closest friends turn into a monster and then nearly been killed by that same monster.

There was no way this wasn’t real.

Glancing round the street appeared clear, so Ty carried on running. He was going home, it was the only place he’d feel safe, even if the mutants had the strength to burst through walls. Home had always been his safe haven, but he knew nothing could truly keep him safe from this real life nightmare and maybe just maybe his mother and brother would be home, sent home early due to the ‘illness’.

He couldn’t die without saying goodbye to his mother and telling her he loved her one last time. The same with his older brother. He knew he’d never see his father again. His father would be returning the colony soon and if he wasn’t killed by a mutant, Ty knew he, his brother and his mother would probably be dead by then. How could you survive this?

Finally reaching his street, Ty stumbled to a halt.

There in the middle of the street was Kodos, with his arms spread wide and a look of pure glee on his face, as he laughed at the destruction around him. And Ty couldn’t look away as a mutant spotted him and charged at him. In a state of complete horror, Ty watched as Kodos turned to face the mutant.

“My beautiful pet,” Kodos cooed. “I’ve created pure perfection!”

But the mutant didn’t stop, Kodos seemed to realise he was next on the menu and a look of fear replaced the look of glee on his face and Ty face took on a ghostly complexion as he watched the mutant tear Kodos to pieces.

Kodos’ screamed echoed in his ears as the mutant turned and run after something unseen further up the street. Before Ty even realised what he was doing, he found himself standing in a pool of blood in front of Kodos’ remains. Ty could feel his stomach turning and turned to the side, just in time to empty his stomach contents all over the floor.

Kodos had created these monster, if what he said was to be believed and his own creations had destroyed him. It would have been poetic, if it wasn’t for the fact his creations had all but killed the entire colony and who knew, these mutants might even make it to the other colonies.

And unknown to Ty, mutants were already on their way to the other colonies. Crossing the Martian terrain, which resembled the Australian outback on Earth. Killing every living thing they crossed paths with and turning anything compatible into mutants too. Kodos was about to become responsible for the near extinction of the Martian race.

~*~

Ty run up the path to his home and placed his palm on the scanner, after a second it flickered green and the door to his home slid open. He rushed through the door, slamming his hand down on the controls and breathing a sigh of relief as the door shut behind him and the lock clicked.

Glancing round, he almost shivered at how eerily silent the house was. Goosebumps appeared on his arms and Ty glanced round with a feeling of unease. Slowly he began to make his way through the house, trying to make as little noise as possible.

He’d rather come face to face with a mutant than see his mother or brother or both in the same state he’d just seen Kodos.

Suddenly a hand grabbed his shoulder and Ty was spun round and pulled into the chest of his older brother.

“Oh thank the higher power,” Ty’s older brother gasped. “You’re alive! I thought you were dead, little brother! Don’t ever scare me and mother like that ever again!”

Ty wrapped his arms around his brother’s waist and shut his eyes. A second pair of arms wrapped around them and Ty recognised his mother’s sent. His family were still alive. He could feel the tears in his eyes and after a second he realised his mother was crying too, as she held him and his older brother.

Ty shut his eyes and simply enjoyed the sounds of his families heartbeats, until finally their mother released them and stepped back, she stared at the two of them for a second and wiped the tears from her eyes.

“Right the two of you go upstairs and pack,” Their mother ordered them. “Take on what you need, not what you want. We need to get out of the colony, if we’re going to survive this. If we stay here it’s only a matter of time before we get found and killed.”

Both Ty and his older brother nodded, before hurrying upstairs to pack.

Ty was halfway through packing when he heard a thump come from his brother’s room.

“You okay, big brother?” Ty called.

There was no reply.

Slowly Ty set down his bag and made his way to his older brother’s room. Raising a hand, he slowly pushed the door to the room open. His brother was standing with his back facing him and he was perfectly still. Reaching out with one hand, Ty lightly knocked on the door which he had just pushed open.

For a moment his brother doesn’t do anything, then he slowly begins to turn round. Ty stumbled back at the sight of his brother. Blood was pouring down his face from his eyes, nose, mouth and even his ears were bleeding. His eyes were misted over with milky white colour and his skin had taken a deathly shade of pale.

Suddenly Ty’s brother leapt at him and Ty only just recovered quick enough to pull the bedroom door shut and steady himself against the opposite wall as his brother crashed into the door, like he was trying to smash through it using his body.

With a sense of growing dread, Ty slowly turned to face the stairs. What if his mother had turned too? She must have heard the noise by now, so why hadn’t she come up stairs to see what was going on? Suddenly there were slow and heavy footsteps on the stairs, whatever it was, it was not his mother!

Running back into his room, Ty quickly grabbed his half packed bag and dived under his bed. It wasn’t the best hiding place, but he had nowhere else to go. The heavy footsteps continued up the stairs and onto the landing and Ty quickly covered his mouth with his hand as a giant mutant walked past his open bedroom door, dragging the bloodied dead body of his mother in its wake.

~*~

Jim kept his eyes shut as he tried to push back the wave of emotion that was threatening to overcome him. He had tried so hard to forget about what had happened on Mars and how Kodos had all but destroyed the Martian race.

“I watched one of my closest friends mutate into a monster,” Jim mutters. “Then she tried to kill me. I escaped, but only just. I watched her change from a beautiful young women to a creature that doesn’t even belong in the deepest pits of hell… I just can’t get it out of my head. She was so kind and caring, how was it even possible she had the gene?”

Leonard could only watch as his best friend had a minor-breakdown right across from him.

“After I escaped, I just carried on running and I didn’t stop,” Jim continues as he recovers enough to carry on. “I saw mutants attack and kill people. I heard the screams and the roars. The pleading for help and the desperation for survival. It wasn’t until I reached my street I stopped.

“Kodos was just standing there… I’ve never known someone look so happy.” Jim shakes his head. “I watched as he got torn apart by a mutant and I stood in his still warm blood, as I tried to comprehend what had just happened and what I had just heard.

“At the time I didn’t know about the signal Kodos had used to mutate the gene, but he stood in the middle of that street and proclaimed he had created them. How can somebody do that? Why would somebody do that? I’ve spent years thinking about it and I still can’t come up with an answer that even begins to cover it.

“He created monsters and he turned perfectly nice ordinary people into mutants and zombies… Because that’s what those who didn’t fully mutate were, flesh eating zombies. Slow and clumsy at first, but strong, fast and deadly quiet when they were hunting there next meal. They could rip you limb from limb in a matter of seconds if they got close enough.

“That’s what my brother turned into,” Jim explains. “A flesh eating zombie. Well least that’s what I think he turned into, I didn’t really hang around to find out. I just hid under my bed and waited for it to end. All I could do was watch as a mutant which had gotten into the house, dragged my mother’s body past my bedroom door, leaving a trail of blood in its wake and prey that it wouldn’t be me next.

“And by some miracle, it wasn’t. I hid under that bed for hours, not daring to move a single muscle or even breathe half the time, just in case the mutant heard me and I’d be next on the list to die. It wasn’t until the following morning that I actually moved. It was late afternoon when the storm hit. Rain and wind. Never in all my life had I been so glad for such a storm.

“The wind drowned out the screams and the rain washed away the blood. The following day all that remained were empty streets and destroyed buildings. When people talk about the apocalypse, that’s what I picture in my head. It was a complete ghost town. Even the mutants had disappeared, no doubt in search of the other colonies and new Martians to prey upon.

“At some point during the night I must have fallen asleep, but when I woke up light was streaming through the windows and that was when I finally plucked up the courage to go outside and found the colony in that state. It was eerie, but I don’t think I could have survived if there had still been mutants around.”


	4. Chapter 4

“That following morning when I left my home, I can’t even begin to describe what it felt like walking through the streets of that colony,” Jim shuts his eyes. “The place was just empty. There was no movement. No life… Nothing. It was a ghost town. And as I walked I tried to convince myself that it was all just a dream and that any moment I’d wake up, but that hadn’t worked before and no matter how much I wanted to believe it… It just wasn’t true and I knew it.

“I spent weeks searching the colony. I went from house to house, looking for anyone else who had survived like I had. By the time I had successfully searched the entire colony, I had found eight others.” Jim pauses as he shakes his head. “Nine out of eight thousand survived. Nine! Only nine! Out of eight thousand! I still can’t believe there was only nine of us survived! Nine Martians was all that was left of our colony!

“Kodos destroyed us and it didn’t stop there. In the time it took me to find the other survivors, the mutants had made their way to the other colonies. The streets ran red with rivers of blood. It’s a sight I’ll never forget... The nine of us left Tarsus IV not long after, there was nothing left there… Maybe if we had stayed we could have lasted a month or two using what remained, but the colony was ruined.

“The short battle with the mutants had left the colony without power. My guess was the mutants had forced their way into the main control centre for the colony and the resulting fight had done some serious damage, damage we had no way of repairing.”

Jim shifted where he was sitting and looked across as Leonard. “Every single colony had been wiped out! The mutants had destroyed everything! There was nothing left alive! Well we believed there was nothing left alive, after a month or so of moving from place to place to avoid to the mutants and endless fleeing every time a mutant caught our sent, we were found my another group of survivors. They nicknamed us the ‘Tarsus nine’.

“At first I couldn’t stand the name. It was a constant reminder that we were the only survivors from our colony, but eventually I grew to like the name. They hadn’t given it to us because we were the only survivors from our colony, they had given it to us because they had found other groups, larger than ours, slaughtered…

“… You see the nine of us that survived, we weren’t adults. We were children. The oldest amongst us was Hoshi Sato and she was only eighteen. On Mars you’re not an adult until you’re twenty-one. That also means you can’t leave home until your twenty-one,” Jim snorts slightly. “Humans always seem so eager to leave home, yet on Mars, leaving home wasn’t a big deal. Of course the majority of Martian’s left home by twenty-five, if you left much later than that, then there were some problems that could occurs, but that’s not important now.”

“Why’s it not important, Jim?” Leonard asks, curiosity getting the better of him.

Jim smiles slightly. “Because at the age of twenty-eight, you choose a mate. Martian’s mate for life. You have one partner and you are bonded to them for the rest of your life. If one mate dies, the other never finds another mate, it also been recorded that when one mate dies, the others dies within weeks of it happening, the bond is that strong in some cases… I have never mated, I mean yeah, I’ve had sex, quite a lot in fact, but I’ve never mated. But anyway as I said, that’s not important.”

~*~

Ty walked through the colony streets, his body tense and ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. Behind him were a group of eight others. Hoshi Sato was the oldest at eighteen and Malakai being the youngest of the group at three and a half years of age. It had taken Ty weeks to find them all, searching each and every house, one by one, until every single building had been checked.

So far Ty and the other had yet to find any bodies, which was a good thing in some respects but bad in others. He knew for himself, it would have been too soon after seeing Kodos get ripped to pieces and his mother’s dead body, to be exposed to more death and dead bodies. As for the others, he couldn’t speak for them as he didn’t know what they had seen before he found them and he wasn’t about to pressure them into telling him.

If they wanted to talk about he’d let them do it in their own time when they were good and ready.

But no bodies also meant that the mutants had most likely eaten them… He had been forced to listen to the mutant which killed his mother, devour her flesh in the hallway as he hid under his bed. The crunching of bones and the sound of flesh and muscle being torn apart was something he was never going to forget… He could still hear the sound ringing in his ears and it haunted his dreams most nights.

He was simply thankful he hadn’t been forced to watch the mutant eat his mother, the sounds had been bad enough.

It had been almost three weeks since half the colony had mutated and now most of the colony lay in ruins. The mutants had torn through buildings looking for victims and many who hadn’t mutated had battled against those who had turned and the evidence left behind from those fights showed that the mutants had won.

It had been a massacre.

There were blood stains everywhere in the areas untouched by the storm.

The streets were mostly clean, as the rain had been washed away most of the blood and the blood which could be found was from those who had been killed after the storm had passed. But inside the buildings were a different story. Blood stained the floors and walls. It wasn’t a pretty sight and all Ty could keep telling himself was it could have been so much worse than just blood.

In a day or two’s time the nine of them would leave Tarsus IV and head for Tarsus V, which was the closet colony to them, in hopes of finding other survivors and if Tarsus V was empty, they’d move on to the next colony. And if the next colony was empty too they’d just keep going until they found others or were killed themselves.

After all, they wouldn’t be able to out run the mutants forever.

Hoshi quickly moved forward and joined Ty at the head of the group, “We should find a place to stop for the night, Ty.”

“As soon as we leave this district, we’ll find a place to stop,” Ty nodded.

“We have enough supplies now to leave here tomorrow,” Hoshi pointed out, as they carried on walking. “We could be at Tarsus V by the end of Phobos’ Luna cycle.”

Ty shook his head, “We leave as already planned, Hoshi… There’s something I have to do before we leave, it’ll only take a day of two maximum.”

“What’s so important that’s you risk staying here for, instead of leaving for potential safety?” Hoshi asked, curiously.

“There’s nothing safe about Tarsus V, Hoshi,” Ty answered. “If you want to be safe, you’re best of staying here. All the mutants have left this place, there’s no guarantee they’ve left Tarsus V. Nor do we know for sure that there are other survivors.”

“But there is hope,” Hoshi pointed out.

“Yeah,” Ty agreed. “There’s always hope.”

~*~

“So… What exactly are we looking for, Ty?” Xavier asked, as he and Ty looked around an empty house.

“I’ll know it when I find it.” Ty answered.

“Why this house?” Xavier questioned. “I mean it’s obviously not your old home. Who does it even belong to?”

“Someone called Kodos.” Ty replied, picking up an old looking note book and flicking through it.

“Never heard of him.” Xavier answered. “How’d you know him? And why is he so important?”

“He lived down the road from me,” Ty explained. “And I didn’t know him that well. As for how important he is, check this out.”

Xavier walked over to where Ty stood holding up the note book he had been flicking through as he spoke. Ty quickly handed it to him and Xavier turned to the first page. After a couple of moments Xavier looked up in alarm.

“Kodos did this?!” Xavier exclaimed. “He’s even explained how he did it! This was what you were looking for, wasn’t it?”

“I thought that was obvious.” Ty answered.

Xavier rolled his eyes. “How did you know?”

“Remember the person I told you I saw get ripped to pieces?” Ty asked.

“That was Kodos.” Xavier guessed correctly.

Ty nodded. “He said he created them. I needed proof… I mean everyone used to say he was mad, but that didn’t mean it was true. I wanted it not to be true.”

Xavier carried on turning the pages of the note book. “And according to this, it going to get a whole lot worse. According to this, those mutants, or ‘Imps’ as Kodos has named them, are only the first of a whole list of monsters he’s created.”

Ty shook his head in disbelief. “We need to get out of here. If the mutants have gone it’s only a matter of time before something else takes their place.”

Xavier quickly handed the note book back to Ty and began walking towards the door. “Why do you think he did it?”

Ty quickly put the note book in the backpack he had slung over one shoulder and quickly followed Xavier out the door.

“I don’t know.” Ty replied. “People said he was mad, but how mad do you have to be to almost destroy your own race?”

Xavier just shook his head, unable to answer that question and not even sure Ty wanted an answer.

Ty almost stopped walking as a thought flashed through his mind. “Maybe he wasn’t mad.”

“What?” Xavier asked.

Ty quickly pulled the note book from his backpack and flicked through the book to a page he had only seen for the briefest of seconds.

On the pages was a single drawing, which was spread across the two pages. It looked like a giant crack, filled with ranging fires and dark shapes. It also seemed to have strange force field of energy around it, similar in appearance to heat waves on a warm day.

“What does that look like to you?” Ty asked, holding out the book for Xavier to look at.

“An interdimensional doorway.” Xavier answered.


	5. Chapter 5

Xavier and Ty sat back to back as the two of them took the first watch of the night, each of them carried a weapon which they had found whilst they had been searching Tarsus IV for supplies. They were currently half way between the Tarsus IV colony and Tarsus V colony, but they still had some tough terrain to cross before the made it there.

It was going to be a hard journey, especially for the younger members of the group.

Ty stared up at the night sky, from where he had been using a torch to read Kodos note book. Hundreds of stars lit up the night sky, it was a truly beautiful view and one that Ty didn’t get to see often.

The light from the colony blocked out most of the stars at night, so his father used to take him camping far from the colony, deep in the wilderness, to see the stars like they were now. Ty blinked back tears, his father was most likely dead, just like the rest of his family. He’d never get to see his family again, all because one Martian went off the deep end and decided creating monsters, which wouldn’t look out of place it hell, was a brilliant idea.

Back to back with him, Xavier was absent-mindedly drawing patterns in the dirt. Xavier had watched his little brother get killed by the mutants Kodos had named imps, every time he shut his eyes he could still see the scene play out before him.

He, his little brother and their father had been outside the colony when Kodos had done what ever it was that caused some Martian’s to mutate into monsters. And they hadn’t returned to the colony until after the first Martian had turned into one of the said monsters.

They had been returning from a visit to Tarsus II and they had only been home a couple of hours when his mother had suddenly complained she hadn’t been feeling well and had gone to the doctors.

No more than half an hour after that, his older brother and sister who had both been just about to leave, had mutated… It had been horrible to watch. It was unlike anything Xavier had ever seen before.

His brother had been on his way to college and his sister had been leaving to meet up with her mate. Her mate was twenty-three, as where she was only twenty-two. His father had killed the two of them, but he had been injured in the process and had told Xavier to take his little brother and run.

And run he had, but he just hadn’t been fast enough.

They had made it two streets from their house when an imp came out of nowhere. It had grabbed his brother, who had screamed with such fear Xavier had almost felt it as his own. Then the imp had torn his brother apart.

There had been so much blood.

If Xavier hadn’t been in such a state of shock he would have thrown up. After his little brother had been killed Xavier had just stood frozen to the spot. He just couldn’t comprehend what had just happened, he had only moved when the creature shot something at him. After that Xavier hadn’t waited around for it to try again, he had just run.

He had somehow managed to out run it and after that. And he wasn’t scared to admit he’d found a hiding place soon after and hadn’t dared move until he heard Ty and the other survivors he had already found, searching for more survivors amongst the colony which was now a ghost town.

By the time Ty had found him the mutants were gone, no doubt on their way to the other colonies, in search their next meals. They had found a couple of other survivors after that and by the time the whole colony had been searched there had only been nine of them in total… So many people were dead.

“What else have you found in Kodos’ note book?” Xavier asked suddenly breaking the silence.

Ty glanced over his shoulder. “Not much. From what I can work out, Kodos was out in the wilderness on the far side of the planet. He was exploring some old research facility and by the sounds of it, it was _the_ old research facility… And that’s where he found the interdimensional doorway.”

“The old research facility?” Xavier questioned. “I thought that place was destroyed hundreds of years ago!”

Ty shook his head. “It was sealed off and abandoned, but never destroyed… It’s only a rumour, but I once heard that our species never evolved to have twenty-four chromosomes. We used to have twenty-three. The facility that Kodos was exploring when he found the interdimensional doorway was where, if you believe the rumour, the twenty-fourth chromosome was created.”

Xavier turned and looked at Ty. “That couldn’t possibly be true… We’d know if we created the twenty-fourth chromosome. How could we not? It’s vital to our survival on this planet! If we had created it, we’d know about it.”

“It’s only a rumour,” Ty pointed out. “But think about it. If the twenty-fourth chromosome was created by us hundreds, if not thousands of years ago… Maybe even in the last age! And that data is still at the old facility and Kodos found it, he would have had all the information he needed to be able to turn us into Imps!”

“But how? How did he do it?” Xavier asked. “How did he make perfectly normal people turn into monsters?”

“I don’t know.” Ty answered. “But I’m planning on finding out.”

~*~

Hoshi was scouting ahead of the rest of group, as she was the best at moving fast and quietly across the rocky terrain. They had been less than a day away from Tarsus V when Xavier had found tracks which could have only belong to an Imp aka a mutated Martian. To make matters worse the tracks looked fresh and alarmingly so.

It had been decided that they should have a scout, someone who could go ahead of the group and keep watch for mutants, as it was unlikely they’d be approached from behind. The imp’s were going to be coming from the colony, as that was where there was most likely going to be food in the form of un-mutated Martian’s.

Ty hadn’t wanted Hoshi to go alone, but as she had pointed out she was the one who could move the fastest while creating the least noise and any loud noises would be a death sentence if there were Imps in hearing range.

Well they didn’t know for sure if an imp would hear them, as none of them knew how good the imp’s were at hearing, Kodos hadn’t written much about that aspects of the monsters. But if they were anything like the non-mutated Martian’s, it was going to be good.

Finding a sheltered but good vantage point, Hoshi settled down and turned her attention to the colony which was visible on the horizon. Her gaze quickly swept over the terrain between where she was sitting and the colony, looking for any sign of movement. A flicker of reflected light caught her attention and she quickly pulled the pair of binoculars from her belt.

The lenses of the binoculars were tinted, meaning they wouldn’t reflected the light and give away her position. Ty had been the one to pick them out when they had been gathering supplies back at Taurus IV, just as he had chosen most of the equipment they had. He had explained that his father used to take him camping and that reflected light from a binoculars lenses scared away the animals he’d been using them to see. And it also gave away you position, if used in a combat situation.

It took her a couple of seconds to locate where the flash of reflected light had come from and once she had, she couldn’t help but wish she hadn’t.

It was a crashed hover car.

The shattered windscreen had been the source of the reflected light and it was covered in dried blood. Shattered blood covered glass covered the ground in front of the hover car, along with rotting Martian remains.

Hoshi quickly lowed the binoculars and tried not to gag as her stomach turned and bile burned up her oesophagus. A movement out the corner of her eye suddenly caught her attention and she quickly turned towards it. Moving slowly across the land not half a mile from where she was sitting was an imp.

Hoshi gulped and kept as still as she could. She had a weapon, but Ty had warned her not to use it unless she had no other choice. The noise of the weapon would attract anything within a mile radius, especially out in the open where the noise would travel more easily.

As she watched, the imp turned and made its way towards the colony and it was only then she noticed it was dragging a body behind it. Hoshi bit down hard on her tongue and watched it until it was out of sight.

A hand suddenly landed on her shoulder and Hoshi screamed. A second hand covered her mouth, cutting off and muffling her scream.

“Shh!” A voice hissed in her ear. “It’s me. It’s Ty.”

Hoshi turned and looked at Ty as he uncovered her mouth.

“You scared me half to death!” She accused.

“Sorry,” Ty muttered, glancing round. “I called you, but you didn’t hear me. I thought something might have been wrong.”

“I saw a mutant.” Hoshi blurted out. “It had a body. It reminded me of… Of… I must have zoned out. I’m sorry.”

Ty squeezed Hoshi shoulder. “It’s alright. Let’s get moving and from now on, we all stay together. I think it’ll be safer that way.”

~*~

Zina and Ty knelt behind a boulder less than five meters from the outskirts of Tarsus V. Not far behind them the others were hidden and ready to join them as soon as they gave the all clear. The sun was beginning to set and it’d be dark within a couple of hours. They needed to find a safe and secure location to spend the night.

They’d have to wait until the following morning until they began to search for any other possible survivors.

Zina suddenly grabbed Ty’s hand and pointed to something just past one of the buildings and it took Ty a couple of moments to notice what she was pointing at. Hidden in the shadows of the building was an imp, if Ty hadn’t known better he could have sworn it was watching them, but if it had seen them it would have attacked straight away.

Without warning the imp moved.

It climbed up the side of the building, much like a spider would and vanished out of sight over the roof of the building. Ty and Zina shared a look before turning their attention back to the colony. Imp’s being able to climb up walls as if it was as easy as breathing, wasn’t good news.

Ty singled for Zina to stay where she was, before glancing round one last time before getting up from his hiding place. Moving fast Ty quietly runs across to the closest building and presses himself up against the wall, hidden in the shadows. Keeping his breathing as even as can, Ty looks round preying he hadn’t been spotted.

When nothing jumps out on him, Ty sighed with relief. He quickly signalled Zina to join him and she quickly did so. The two of them jump as a sound echoed from a nearby alleyway and Ty quickly drew the knife he had with him. Zina gripped Ty’s arm as an imp appeared from the shadows of the alleyway.

The two of them kept as still as they could as the imp paused and sniffed the air, it suddenly turned in their direction and began to move towards them. An unearthly scream sounded from deeper in the colony and the imp turned towards it, before running off in the direction it had sounded from.

Zina and Ty both sighed matching sighs of relief and Zina shut her eyes and rested her head back against the wall they had their backs to. Ty ducked his head slightly and tried to calm his racing heart.

That had been too close for comfort.

He had survived Tarsus IV, so why was this so scary?

“Let’s move.” Ty whispered once he was sure he could move without shaking. “The sooner we start, the sooner we’ll finish.”

Zina nodded. “Right.” 


	6. Chapter 6

Blaise was halfway through the second watch of the night, when a sudden noise from the floor below him almost made him drop his weapon in fright. It had taken Ty and Zina little over an hour to find the building they were currently hiding in, as it had taken longer them longer than original planned to find a safe place to shelter for the night.

The colony had been crawling with mutants or Imps as Ty and Xavier had taken to calling them. They could appear out the shadows and they moved fast. Hoshi had been convinced Ty and Zina had been killed. Ever since she had scouted ahead of the group, she had been more jumpy and twitchy than she had been before.

Blaise could only guess she had seen something whilst scouting, as she refused to speak about it. And he wasn’t about to press her for answers. This was scary enough as it was, he didn’t need to add more things to the list of things he had nightmares about.

And then Ty and Zina had returned.

Blaise was ashamed to admit that entering the colony and creeping though the streets to the building Ty and Zina had found was one of the scariest things Blaise had ever done. In many ways it was far scarier than hiding from the mutants back at Tarsus IV.

Hoshi had been visible shaking as they walked, scanning the shadows around the wildly and keeping a tight grip on her gun. It had been in that moment, Blaise decided he definitely never wanted to know what Hoshi had seen. If she showed that much fear, it must have been truly bad.

By the time they had reached the building, even Xavier had been jumping at the slightest of sounds and he was one of the braver members of the group. It seemed Ty was the only one keeping his cool, but even he was tenser than usual. Every movement in the shadows around them had suddenly became a potential threat.

Zina had taken first watch and Blaise had only volunteered to take second in Ty’s place, because his mind was too on edge and no matter how hard he tried he just couldn’t get to sleep. And now he was living to regret that decision.

When the noise sounds again Blaise slowly moves across to where Ty was sleeping. Ty would know what to do, out of all them Ty seemed to be the one who knew the most about what was going and how to survive. He had become their leader, the one they all turned to in a crisis, even though he wasn’t the oldest member of their group.

“Ty?” Blaise whispered urgently, shaking Ty’s shoulder. “Ty, wake up! There’s something downstairs!”

Ty had decided the second floor of the three storey building was the best place to hide. They’d have a place to run if something came from the floor above them and the same if something came from the floor below them, the fire escape was only metres from where they were resting.

“Ty!” Blaise hissed. “Wake up!”

Ty eyes blinked open and he looked up at Blaise, the noises sounded from downstairs again and Ty bolted upright, almost head-butting Blaise as he did so. Ty reached for his weapon and turned to Blaise.

“Why isn’t Zina on watch?” He asked.

Blaise glanced over at where Zina lay asleep. “You were asleep, I wasn’t. So I offered to take your watch.”

Ty nodded and quietly got to his feet. “Well seeing as you’re awake, let’s go.”

“What?!” Blaise hissed as loud as he dared. “We need to get out of here!”

“No,” Ty answered. “We need to see what’s downstairs.”

“Why?” Blaise demanded.

“Because what if it’s nothing?” Ty reasoned. “What if it’s just someone’s pet or another survivor? Or just the wind making something rattle? Why risk moving and being caught out there in the dark, when we could still be perfectly safe here?”

“Fine.” Blaise answered. “But what if it isn’t nothing? What if it’s a mutant?”

“Then we come back up here, get the others and move.” Ty replied.

“But what if it sees us?” Blaise shivered slightly.

Ty smiled grimly. “Then we run like hell and hope it doesn’t catch us… Or we kill it.”

~*~

Xavier almost screamed when Ty shook him awake. Once he had got his racing heart back under control, he glared at Ty.

“Yo-” Xavier began, only to have Ty slam a hand over his mouth.

“Shh!” Ty hissed close to his ear. “There’s something downstairs.”

As if on que another sound echoed from the floor below. Xavier reached up and pulled Ty’s hand away from his mouth. He glanced towards the entrance of the room and saw Blaise standing there looking out into the hallway.

“I need you to keep watch,” Ty began to explain. “Me and Blaise are going to go check it out what’s making the noise. If you hear anything coming this way that doesn’t sound like us and we haven’t returned, you wake the others and you get out of here.”

“What about you and Blaise?” Xavier asked. “How will you find us?”

“We’ll find you,” Ty promised. “But that might not even happen.”

Ty gets his feet only for Xavier to grab his arm halfway.

“Stay safe.” Xavier ordered.

Ty smiled slightly. “We’ll be fine.”

Xavier nodded and let go of Ty’s arm. Ty quickly made his way over to the door where Blaise was waiting. Blaise looked at Ty, fear was visible in his eyes and for a moment Ty considered whether Blaise should stay in Xavier place. But if Blaise was truly that scared, he’d probably panic at the first noise and that wouldn’t end well.

Ty knew Xavier was capable of keeping a level head.

Ty looked past the door and into the hallway, it appeared clear.

“Right, let’s go.” Ty whispered, stepping out into the hallway.

After a moment’s hesitation, Blaise followed him. Ty noticed Blaise’s hands were visibly shaking and again Ty wondered if this was the right thing to be doing. Ty shook his head slightly, if they were all going to survive this, they were going to have to get used to it and sooner was better than later.

Slowly they made their way down the steps at the end of the hallway, Ty raised his hand to signal Blaise to stop. A shadow had pasted the open doorway in the halfway below them, it moved slowly and looked Martian in shape, but hairs on the back of his neck told Ty that it most likely wasn’t.

Once the shadow was completely out of sight, Ty carried on moving and once he had reached the bottom of the stairs, he signalled for Blaise to join him. Once Blaise was beside him, he signalled to Blaise to stay where he was while he crept forward and stopped with his back to the wall beside the doorway the shadow had passed.

Out the corner of his eye he saw Blaise pale and then he saw it.

At the far end of the corridor was an Imp. It clearly hadn’t spotted them yet, but Ty couldn’t move for if he did the movement would definitely catch the Imp’s attention and that definitely wouldn’t end well.

Ty shut his eyes for a second and breathed deeply, his heart was racing and he was beginning to sweat.

Opening his eyes he looked back at where Blaise had been standing, only to find he had gone. No doubt he had gone back up the stairs and who could blame him, there was no point in both of them dying because sooner or later that Imp was going to spot him and he’d he next on the menu.

~*~

Ty hardly dared breathe as he pushed himself as flat to the wall as he could. The Imp ahead of him turned and sniffed the air and Ty held his breath as it turned in his direction. It let out a shrieking roar and charged towards him.

Moving on instinct alone, Ty dived sideways and through the doorway the shadow had passed and slamming the semi destroyed door shut behind him, before backing away from it slowly as the Imp outside slammed into it with enough force to buckle the metal.

And so he found himself in a kitchen, larger than he had ever seen before. The once spotless stainless steal surfaces were stained in blood and the tiled floor was no longer the pearly white it had once been, as it too was stained in blood.

A growl to Ty’s left alerted him to the fact the room was already occupied. Turning in the direction of the growl, Ty found himself faced with what he had come to know as a Zombie. Ty stared at it wide eyed as it growled at him again and twisted its head from side to side in a way no normal Martian should have been able to.

With a final growl at him, it lunging at him with its teeth bared. Ty stumbled back with a yell. But as the Zombie Martian made it halfway towards him, the door to the room was ripped open as the metal was torn apart like paper.

Ty ducked down behind one of the many kitchen counters as the Imp tore the Zombie to pieces, having collided with upon entering the room. Ty quickly covered his mouth with his hand, as the Imp landed on the counter above him, to cut off his scream of fear.

He had nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

Tears rolled down from his eyes, as his bit down on his tongue as the Imp above him moved, turning its head from one direction to the other. It was looking for him and it wouldn’t be long until it found him. Least it couldn’t sniff him out this time, as the scent of blood was heavy in the air thanks to the Zombie the Imp had just torn to pieces moments before.

But the smell was making Ty’s stomach roll unpleasantly.

Looking round desperately, Ty searched for a way to get himself out of the situation he was in alive. If he run for it, he’d have to risk going out into the colony streets, as he couldn’t lead the imp back to the others. He knew he could out run one Imp, but as soon as he was out there, every Imp and Zombie in the colony would know about in a matter of moments.

Which left him with only one other option: Kill the Imp.

The only usable weapon Ty had on him was a knife as a gun would make too much noise, which meant he’d have to get close to the Imp in order to kill it. If he moved now maybe he could kill it before it realised what was happening, as it was right above him.

But in his heart of hearts Ty knew that would never work. His knife wouldn’t be able to cut deep enough to wound the imp fatally and if he didn’t kill the Imp in one strike, he’d be the only causality.

He was well and truly done for.


	7. Chapter 7

“Blaise?” Xavier questioned, when Blaise stumbled back into the room as white as a sheet. “Where’s Ty?”

“M-mutant,” Blaise stuttered in reply.

“Where?” Xavier demanded, tightening the grip on his weapon.

“Downstairs,” Blaise answered. “Ty-Ty couldn’t get away.”

“Is Ty still alive?” Xavier asked nervously.

He didn’t know what they’d do if they lost Ty. Because Ty was their leader and the glue holding their group together. He was the one who kept them calm, even when he himself was petrified and wanted to do nothing more than run away and hide.

Without Ty they’d be lost.

They’d be dead too.

“Blaise. Is Ty still alive?” Xavier asked again, when Blaise didn’t answer.

Blaise just stared at Xavier, as his shoulders began to shake.

“Is. Ty. Still. Alive?” Xavier hissed slowly and sharply.

Blaise nodded slowly.

“Y-yes.” He stuttered. “When I l-last s-saw him, he was a-alive.”

“Right,” Xavier muttered, picking up all the weapons he could find that wouldn’t make a noise that would attract other mutants when used. “Stay here and don’t make a sound. If you hear something that isn’t me and Ty returning, wake the others and hide. Do not, I repeat, _do not_ go outside unless you have no other choice. Am I clear?”

Blaise nodded.

“That isn’t good enough,” Xavier hissed. “The lives of everyone in this room are relying on your ability to do what I told you! Am I clear, Blaise?”

“Y-yes!” Blaise stuttered out.

“Good.” Xavier nodded, getting to his feet.

He stared at Blaise for a moment.

He was taking a risk leaving Blaise on his own.

Maybe he should wake Zina, or one of the others. There was a chance Blaise would panic and that would doom them all. But if Blaise was going to survive this, he’d need to find his nerve, which had been Ty’s aim when he had taken Blaise with him or that’s the reason Xavier believed Ty had done it.

If they were going to survive this they needed to be able to stand their ground and not run away screaming at the slightest sound or slightest of dangers. None of them would survive if they acted like that and none of them would survive on their own. They needed to work as a team, which meant everyone needed to play their part and pull their weight.

Because when it came to the crunch, they were all they had to rely on. They only had each other to watch their backs. It was like a chain, strong and unbreakable if every link was strong. But a chain was only as strong as its weakest link and they couldn’t afford to have even the slightest of weaknesses.

Weakness meant death here.

Turning Xavier made his way out of the room and in to the hallway, keeping his footsteps as silent as he could. There was a very good chance Xavier was going to have to kill the Imp if it hadn’t moved on. And his only chance of killing the Imp was to get as close as possible and strike before the Imp even knew he was there.

Then it would be a fact of whether Xavier found Ty alive and quite possibly injured or whether he just found the ripped up flesh and pool of blood that would be his remains.

~*~

Xavier reached the bottom of the stairs, he almost stumbled at the sight which greeted him. Across the hallway was an open doorway, but it hadn’t open by choice. The frame of the door was buckled and the door itself looked like it had been torn apart. The metal which had once made up the door lay scattered around the floor in razor sharp pieces.

But that wasn’t what had caused Xavier to stumble.

Beyond the door, the floor was covered in liquid, which glittering in the low light. Xavier could smell it was blood and if the smell hadn’t told him what the liquid was, the body pieces which lay around the floor would have. The body pieces were torn apart in such a way, Xavier couldn’t tell if it was Ty or not.

He really hoped it wasn’t Ty.

Taking a deep breath, Xavier began moving once more and as he stepped down the last couple of steps he could see the Imp through the doorway. It was stood on one of the counters which filled the room, looking around and sniffing the air with its back to the doorway. It seemed to be looking for something.

Maybe, just maybe, Ty was still alive.

But the blood and remains near the door were fresh. So it was most likely that the Imp was just looking for its next meal. And Xavier wasn’t about to let himself or the others be that meal, as he slowly moved forward and silently picked up on of the metal shards which lay on the flop from where the door had been destroyed.

He’d have a much better chance of killing the Imp with the piece of metal than the weapons he had bought with him. The shard of metal was longer, he could probably force it straight through the Imps body, which would do far more damage than the shorter weapons he had on him.

He was going to kill the Imp if it was the last thing he ever did.

A grin slowly made its way onto Xavier face, he’d take great pleasure in killing the monster before him. After all it had killed Ty and countless others. It didn’t deserve to live, even if it had once been Martian just like himself. He was going to kill it in honour of Ty and all the other Martians it had killed. And once it was dead, he and the others would have one less mutant to worry about.

But Xavier had seen what was in ‘Kodos’ handbook of monsters’ as Ty had taken to calling it recently. If what had been in the book had also been created, Imps and the zombie like creatures that they had crossed paths with, would be the least of their worries and with Ty no longer among the living, their chances of survival were now even lower.

Bracing himself, Xavier gripped the piece of metal in his hands, ignoring the way it cut into his palms as he readied himself to attack the Imp. He was going to stake the metal straight through the Imp’s heart. There was no way the monster would be able to survive something like that. Nothing would be able to survive it, not even the strongest of Martian in history!

Taking a deep breath, Xavier lunged forward, driving the spike of metal straight through the Imps flesh and then through its heart and clean out the other side of its body. The Imp howled and Xavier let go of the metal as he stumbled backwards, watching as the Imps blood oozed out of the wound around the piece of metal and run down it’s back.

The Imp let out one finally howl, before an odd squelching noise filled the air and its body went still before falling sideways and crashing to the ground.

~*~

Ty gripped the handle of his blade and listened carefully to the movements of the Imp above him. There was no doubt it was looking for him. He could hear it sniffing at the air and letting out growls as it failed to find his scent, as it had been masked by the previously killed Zombie. If it hadn’t been for that Zombie…

Ty shook his head to clear it and listened once more, only to nearly jump from his hiding place in fright as the Imp above him let out a howl. Never before had Ty heard an Imp make a noise quiet like it and he had no idea what had caused it to make such a sound.

As much as he tried to, he couldn’t hear anything other than the howling of the Imp above him. The howling had even blocked out the beating of his own heart, which had been hammering so loudly, Ty had been worried the Imp would hear it.

And then Ty felt something wet hit his hair and run done his face in drops and it smelt like blood.

Without a second of hesitation, Ty jumped to his feet and spun round to face the Imp, before driving the blade of his knife straight through the Imp’s right eye, causing it to howl once more as the blade cut through it and into its brain.

The knife only stopped moving forward once it hit the back of the Imp’s skull. Ty then pulled his blade clean of the Imp with a sickening squelching sound and watched as the body of the Imp feel sideways to the ground with a thump.

It was only then Ty allowed himself to look closely at the Imp. He couldn’t help but be slightly impressed by what he saw. Someone had driven a spike of metal straight though Imps chest, no doubt going through its heart the process. The aim had been dead on and the metal had cut straight through the Imp like it had been made of paper. Ty couldn’t believe the Imp hadn’t died straight away.

An injury like that would have killed any normal Martian…

… Which could only mean one thing:

Mutated Martians were stronger than non-mutated Martians.

“Ty!” A shocked voice exclaimed, breaking him out of his thoughts.

Ty glanced up quickly to find Xavier standing across from him with a mixture of shock, joy and relief on his face.

“You’re alive!” Xavier grinned. “I can’t believe it! You’re alive!”

Ty frowned slightly, before realising that Xavier must have thought the Zombie’s remains by the door must have been his. Ty smiled and quickly walked round to Xavier and pulled him into an embrace.

“Yeah, I’m alive.” Ty muttered. “Did you really think one Imp would be able to kill me that easily?”

Xavier laughed slightly. “You’re right. What was I thinking?”

“Beats me.” Ty answered moving back and quickly checking Xavier over.

Xavier almost rolled his eyes. “I’m fine. It should be me checking you for injuries! You’re the one who nearly made it onto the Imps menu!”

Before Ty had a chance to answer, a shriek filled the air and it certainly didn’t sound like it belonged amongst the living.

“What the hell was that?!” Xavier whispered.

“If I had to guess,” Ty answered, keeping his voice just as low. “I’d say it was a ‘Lost Soul’. Kodos wrote their screams and shrieks could wake the dead.”


	8. Chapter 8

The haunting screams and shrieks of the Lost Souls echoed and bounced off the walls and buildings as Ty and Xavier made their way back to the room they had taken refuge in for the night. Unsurprisingly all the others were awake and huddled together fearfully, as the screams and shrieks disturb the once silent night air.

Blaise looked incredibly pale and a cold sweat of fear covered him and made his skin glisten in low light of the room. He was visibly shaking and every time a scream or shriek sounded he jumped or flinched and bite down hard on his lip to stop himself from crying out in fear. He looked ready to run, but the fear was keeping him rooted to the spot as the screams and shrieks were sounding from every direction.

Ty moved into the room quickly and hurried over to where he had left his pack. He quickly pulled the pack open and began digging through it. Finally finding what he looking for, Ty pulled a pair of night vision binoculars free from his pack. He quickly got to his feet from he’d been kneeling and walked towards the door.

Xavier grabbed Ty’s arm, stopping him from going any further.

“Where are you going?” Xavier hissed.

“The roof,” Ty answered. “We need to know how many of them there are out there.”

“Are you insane?!” Xavier demanded. “You were nearly killed downstairs and now you’re off to risk your life again, just to see how many there are!”

“I wasn’t nearly killed,” Ty replied, glaring at Xavier knowing that the others were listening to them.

Xavier snorted without humour. “And just how long do you think you would have lasted before that Imp found you, huh? It took the two us to kill that thing and now you want to go out on the roof to see how many of those Lost Souls there are! If they even are Lost Souls, that is!”

“We need to know what we’re up against, Xavier,” Ty pulled his arm free. “We need to be prepared in case they find us. And you’re right, I don’t know if they’re Lost Souls for sure, which means at the moment we’re surrounded by a countless amount of monsters and we have no idea what they are!”

Xavier shook his head. “We’re safe here, Ty. Why risk it?”

“Because we might not be safe here, Zay,” Ty answered. “From what Kodos has written, we’re far from safe right now! There are creatures in that book, which Kodos claimed could pass through solid walls! We have to know, because we have to be prepared… If we’re not, we won’t survive much longer.”

“Fine,” Xavier replied. “But I’m coming with you.”

It was then Ty’s turn to shake his head. “No, I need you to stay here and look after the others.”

“You can’t go alone, Ty,” Xavier argued.

“He won’t be going alone,” Johan cut in from where he was sitting beside Zina. “I’ll go with Ty.”

Ty turned towards Johan and meet his determined gaze. There was fear in his eyes, but his determination to face his fears and play his part as a member of their small group made Ty believe taking Johan with him wouldn’t be a decision he’d regret.

They all needed to face their fears sooner or later, or otherwise they wouldn’t survive.

“Grab a weapon,” Ty advised him. “And whatever you do, don’t lose it.”

~*~

Johan followed Ty as closely as he could, as Ty lead the way up to the roof of the building. He copied every move Ty made and even mimicked Ty’s posture and breathing pattern. To Johan, Ty was a hero no doubt about it. If he could even be slightly more like Ty, he knew he’d have a far better chance of survival than if he just acted like himself.

Ty was brave, Johan wasn’t.

If it hadn’t been for Ty, Johan doubted he’d be alive right now. He’d been so scared when Ty had first found him, he hadn’t wanted to leave his hiding place and if it hadn’t have been for Ty he wouldn’t have. He would have stayed hidden there until he was too weak to move and he would have died eventually.

Ty had saved his life and he didn’t even realise he had.

Even after Ty had found him and coaxed him from his hiding place, Johan had been a nervous wreck. He’d been shaking and trembling, sobbing and frightened. He’d been so scared. Every time he’d attempted to eat, his nervousness had meant his stomach couldn’t keep the food down for long and it had been Ty who had sat with him and comforted him by rubbing his back as he had thrown up.

It had been Ty who set out his bed roll besides Johan’s each night. It had been Ty who comforted him after his nightmares and hugged him and told him everything was going to be okay. It was Ty who sung him lullabies at night, when the fear and nightmares kept him awake. Ty had become his rock. The person he relied on to keep him safe, even when the horrors were inside his own head.

It was something Johan had worked out pretty quickly, Ty always looked out for others before himself. And Johan knew Ty must have suffered and seen things just like he had, just like they all had. It had been unavoidable. So if Ty could be brave and face this nightmare head on, so could he. So could all of them.

Keeping close to Ty as he pushed open the door to the roof, two of them stepped out on to the roof and for a single moment the night was completely silent, before a bone chilling shriek echoed through the still air making Johan jump and Ty flinch at the closeness of it. The two of them could almost feel the sound vibrating through them, it was so loud.

A pale oranges light danced across the walls of the building around them, causing vast shadows and weird shapes. The screams and shrieks continued to disturb the night around them as they ducked down behind the low wall which surrounded the flat roof. Another scream from almost directly below them sounded and almost made Ty drop the night vision binoculars he was holding as the noise made his ears ring.

The twenty-fourth chromosome hadn’t only made the Martian race superhuman strength and agility wise, it had also improved all their senses.

Their vision was sharper, they could see far better in the dark than humans could and could see far more colours too. They could see clearly across larger distances. Even their short range sight was better than humans.

Their sense of taste was much sharper, they could taste wider spectrum than humans could. It made eating foods with incredibly strong tastes almost painful, but something they learnt to deal with over time.

Their sense of smell was far better too, they could track smells and scents much like many of Earth’s native predators could. And on days when the weather was on their side, they could track scents for miles across the open tundra.

Even their sense of touch was better.

But that also meant their ability to hear was far better too. They could hear the beating of the heart in those around them as well as their own heart beats, although the sound often faded into background noise over time. So such a loud scream in such a close proximity was almost painfully loud.

Ty was almost surprised the sound hadn’t burst his eardrums it had been so piercing.

~*~

Ty and Xavier walked at the head of the group as they walked through the colony. Ty and Johan hadn’t been able to get a clear visual on what Ty thought were Lost Souls the night before. They moved to fast past the building and the night vision binoculars couldn’t see them clearly, they simply showed up as bright orbs of light, almost blindingly so.

From what Ty and Johan had been able to see in brief glimpses as the monsters flew past, they appeared to be flying orbs of what could only be described as fire.

Burning hot orbs of fire.

Ty was now sure they were Lost Souls, no other monster Kodos had described could have appeared like that through the night vision binoculars. No other monster screamed and shrieked like that either… But whether their screams could truly wake the dead was yet to be shown.

Their description also included fire. Kodos had described them as flying balls of red hot fire if seen from a distance, up close they looked far more horrifying though.

The colony they were walking through was eerily silent and still. It was making the group jumpy and even Ty was having a hard time keeping himself calm. The colony was a ghost town and it was putting them all on edge.

The early morning sun was casting long shadows across the ground and hiding entire sides of buildings deep in the shadows, concealing whatever may be hiding there from view. It was the perfect hiding spot for Imps.

The silence and stillness of the colony was also sending the group’s senses into overdrive as their natural survival instincts took over. Even the slightest of movements and quietest of sounds was enough to have their flight or fight response kicking in. The feeling that they were being watched only heightened that response.

But whatever was watching them, if they were indeed being watched, hadn’t made a move yet.

Ty suddenly sniffed the air as the hint of a scent caught his attention. It smelt like a fellow Martian, but it was too weak to know for sure. Beside him Xavier also sniffed the air, having caught wind of the same scent as Ty had. He turned in a small circle trying to work out which direction the scent was coming from.

“It’s coming from down there,” Xavier finally concluded, pointing down on of the streets leading of the main street they were currently walking down.

Ty looked in the direction Xavier was pointing. The street looked no different to the one they were currently walking down, nor did it show any signs that Imps had been there recently. It was a hard choice to make in many ways, if they tried to track this scent down, they could walk straight into a very dangerous situation if an Imp had also caught wind of the scent.

Or they could carry one walking and possibly be safe, as all the Imps within smelling range of the scent would be following it. But then it was possible they could turn the next corner and find themselves faced with an army of Imps. They were a group of nine, their scent would be far stronger than a single Martian.

“We need to find something to mask our scents with,” Ty spoke up suddenly.

Xavier nodded. “But with what?”

“We could use Absconde’s berries,” Hoshi suggested.

“Where would we get those from?” Xavier asked.

“Most shops sell them,” Hoshi pointed out. “And it takes the berries months to lose their scent after being picked. We should still be able to use them.”

Ty nodded. “We passed a shop a couple of blocks back… Right here’s what we’re going to do. Hoshi you take the others and head back to the shop, find as many of these berries as you can. While you and the others are doing that, me and Xavier are going to see if we can track down this scent.”

“We can’t split up now!” Zina protested.

“We don’t have much of a choice,” Ty argued. “If we all go back, the Martian who could possibly be giving off that scent, might be killed. The sooner we find them the better their chance of survival is, but at the same time we can’t risk the safety of our entire group on what could already be a lost cause. And we need those berries, at the moment our scents could be acting as a homing beckon for every Imp in a mile radius!”


	9. Chapter 9

Ty and Xavier quickly and quietly made their way along the silent and deserted streets, following the scent of what they hoped was a fellow Martian survivor. There were decomposing bodies in the streets and blood stains everywhere they looked.

Everywhere they looked there was nothing but death and destruction.

Their luck had finally run out.

So far they had been lucky, they had avoided most of what they were now surrounded by. There were so many bodies and the smell of death in the air was so strong in was making their eyes water. But even over the stench of death, they could still make out the scent of a fellow Martian. It was slowly getting stronger, they couldn’t be far from them now.

The two of them kept moving, working together silently in such a way that they each had the other’s back and their entire surroundings in complete view between the two of them at all times. Each had worked out a place to hide should an Imp appear and each had planned an escape route if hiding wasn’t an option.

Finally they reached a building.

The main door looked as if it had been beaten down by force and through the broken door was where the scent was coming from. Through the main door, they could see a light filled lobby and almost pitch black, shadow filled corridors and a body lay on the floor in the middle of the lobby, half visible in the light, whilst the other half was concealed in the shadows.

It wasn’t a fresh kill, this Martian had been dead for at least four days or possibly more.

“I’ll check the entrance,” Ty muttered. “You keep watch. I’ll signal once I know it’s clear.”

Xavier nodded, “If I see anything I’ll whistle twice. If something is coming our way and we need to run, I’ll whistle once.”

And so Xavier took up a lookout position in the shadows by the main doorway to the building, whilst Ty made his way into the lobby and the darkened corridors beyond it.

He stepped over the body and pulled out his torch and switched it on and shone it down the corridors one at a time. The beam of light lit up the corridors, illuminating the dust particles which drifted through the still air, but other than that the corridors were empty.

Lowering his torch, Ty raised a hand to his mouth and mimicked a bird call to let Xavier know the entrance was clear. A few seconds later Xavier was standing at his side, sniffing the air to work out where the scent was coming from. He nodded towards a corridor a little to their left and Ty inclined his head in agreement.

The corridor was eerily silent as the made their way down it. Their footsteps, as quite as they were, still seemed to echo around them as if it were the loudest noise in the world. Ty suddenly held up his hand signalling Xavier to stop as the faintest of sounds reached his ears. Xavier paused and glanced round.

Ty listened carefully.

He could have sworn he had heard something.

Then he heard it again.

It sounded like a women crying, but there was an undercurrent to the cry which didn’t feel right to Ty. There was a hint of something in that cry which was so familiar, but he couldn’t place where from.

Ty glanced at Xavier who had heard it to, but Xavier didn’t show any sign that he thought something was wrong, he just looked in the direction the crying was coming from with a look of determination on his face.

With a node the two of them carried on walking.

Finally they reach a closed door and the crying was coming from the other side. Ty hit one of the buttons on the wall and the door slid open to reveal a women sitting in a chair in front of a control station, her head resting on her arms as she cried.

“Ma’am,” Xavier called out quietly.

The women’s head snapped up and she turned towards them.

“Help me, please!” She cried moving towards them, before turning away.

“Ma’am?” Xavier asked.

She turned back round to face them.

“Help me…” She pleaded.

The two of them could only watch in horror as the women’s face seemed to shrivel up and blood began pouring out of her nose, eyes, mouth and ears. Then her skin turned black, like it was a piece of burnt wood, before her entire face caught fire, leaving nothing but a burning skull atop her neck and shoulders.

Suddenly the skull let out a shriek and flew straight towards them. Xavier drew his gun and fired three shots, which blasted the skull to pieces.

“What was that?” Xavier gasped out.

“A Lost Soul,” Ty answered.

~*~

Hoshi, Zina and Johan made their way towards the shop they were hoping to find some Absconde berries in, whilst the other remained hidden not too far away. The shop they were approaching was a wild food shop and had sold a wide range berries and nuts which were native to the planet and could be found out in the wilderness.

They had already checked two shops, but neither had anything of use.

Hoshi moved towards the main door first which were shattered in places and covered with dried blood. Suddenly the doors open and an automatic voice over started, welcoming her and wishing her a pleasant shopping experience.

Hoshi froze.

The voice over might not have seemed loud before this nightmare started, but now the automatic voice seemed to echo through the street around them.

Taking deep breathes in an attempt to calm herself down, Hoshi stood perfectly still and listened for a couple of minutes to see if the sound had attracted any unwanted attention. But the colony remained perfectly still and silent and Hoshi let out a breath.

Moving forward, Hoshi waved Johan and Zina to follow her and the three of them made their way into the shop. It was only when the automatic doors slid shut behind them that Hoshi realised it may have been a good idea to jam the doors open in case the doors gave the same message when they left.

“Johan and Zina,” Hoshi whispered. “Take the left side. I’ll take the right, we’ll meet in the middle.”

Johan and Zina nodded and they split up.

Hoshi walked down the aisles, searching the shelves for the berries they needed when suddenly the automatic voice over sounded again. Moving as quickly and quietly as she could, Hoshi made her way to the end of the aisle she was in. She peered round the end shelves and quickly pushed herself back against the shelves as she saw what had just entered the shop.

A group of five Zombies now stood inside the entrance to the shop.

Their cloths were torn and covered in blood and dirt. The scent of rotting flash reached Hoshi’s nose and she almost gagged. Dried blood covered the lower halves of the Zombies faces and pieces of decomposing flash was caught in their teeth. Their skin had a grey tinge to it and was peeling off their faces in places.

Hoshi quietly made her towards the back of the stop, reaching the end of the aisle she turned in the direction she had sent Johan and Zina in. She ducked from behind aisle to aisle as quickly as she could, preying that the Zombies didn’t hear or see her. Finally she reached where Zina and Johan were hidden and by the looks of it, they had found the berries and by the smell of it too.

Zina’s eye widened as she saw Hoshi and she quickly held out a hand full of berries. Hoshi quickly took them and wiped them over her face, hands and cloths. No sooner had she done so a shadow passed the top of the aisle they were hidden in. The three of them watched frozen to the spot as a Zombie began moving towards them at a fast pace.

It drew level with them, stared at them and sniffed the air.

The Zombie growled and Zina bite down hard on her lip to stop herself from crying out. Then the Zombie carried on moving past them deeper into the shop. Hoshi let out the breath she had been holding and nodded to Zina and Johan. Moving as fast as they dared the two of them began to make their way towards the entrance of the shop, only to find their way blocked by three Zombies.

Glancing round, Hoshi grabbed a can off the shelf next to them and threw the can as far as she could, it bounced off the far wall and crashed across the floor before rolling to a halt somewhere near the back of the shop.

The noise caught the attention of two of the Zombies blocking their way, they quickly moved towards the direction the noise had come from, but one Zombie remained.

“We’re going to have to go round it,” Hoshi whispered. “Once we get outside, run!”

~*~

A strange noise reached Ty’s ears and he turned and looked at the body of the Martian women. Her head was reconstructing itself, bone and flesh alike were reforming. From beside him Xavier noticed his expression and turned to look at the body.

“How..?” Xavier asked.

“I don’t know,” Ty answered. “But we need to get out of here right now.”

“Right,” Xavier answers. “Let’s go.”

The two of them quickly leave the room with their weapons at the ready.

The sound of Xavier shooting the Lost Soul would have attracted the attention of any Imp or other monster in the area. The hallway was completely clear, but a sound from the upper floors of the building told them they’d be having the company of Imp’s very soon.

Sensing a movement behind them, Ty spun on his heels and stared at the creature behind them.

It was the women.

Her teeth were like needles and blood dripped from her mouth. Her eyes were glowing red and orange, like the flames of a Lost Soul.

Xavier grabbed hold of Ty arm suddenly and pulled him down to the ground, just in time as an Imp jumped over them and collided with creature behind them. Both Ty and Xavier get to their feet and run.

The Imp let out and howl and chased after them. Reaching the lobby, the two of them stumble to a halt at the sight of the Zombies just outside the entrance.

“We’re trapped,” Xavier exclaimed.

Ty quickly looked round and noticed a shattered window off to their left.

“Over there,” Ty pointed. “Quickly!”

The two of them quickly ran towards it, just as the Imp burst out of the hallway behind them.

The shrieking noise the Imp let out made Ty’s ears ring. He glanced over his shoulder just in time to see the Imp scramble backwards into the shadows and darkness of the hallway they had just come from.

It appeared Imp’s didn’t like sunlight.

Knocking the shattered glass away the two of them jumped through the window, landing in the street on the other side and by some miracle failing to catch the attention of the Zombies near the entrance to the building.

A crash behind them reminded them of the fact the Imp hadn’t been the only thing chasing them.

“Run!” Ty orders and Xavier didn’t need to be told twice.


	10. Chapter 10

Ty walked along a deserted street. The colony around him was silent and still. The street was empty just like every other street he had walked down. There was nothing. The colony was completely empty, all that remained were the shells of decaying building, stained a rusty brown by the sandstorm which swept through the colony every week or so.

There were no bodies.

No skeletons.

No imps.

No monsters of any kind.

Ty was alone. He was the only one left. He couldn't remember what had happened, but he knew the others were gone. They were dead, just like everyone else. He was the last of his kind and he was trapped on a dying planet with no hope of ever escaping it… With no hope of ever seeing another living soul for the rest of his life.

He'd die here.

Alone and forgotten.

It'd only take a couple of days for the sand whipped up by the storms to cover his body, when he does eventually fall and pass from the world. No one would ever find him, because there was no one left to find him.

He wouldn't even have a gravestone to mark his finally resting place.

He just kept walking, until at long last he came to the edge of the colony and stopped. Before him, for a far as the eye could see, were thousands of gravestones. A shocking contrast to the rusty brown sand they stood in.

So many graves, so many lost souls.

And Ty kept on walking, passing the gravestones with names unreadable, having been washed away by the sandstorms. So many, just like him, were already forgotten. Part of a race doomed to destruction by the actions of one of their own. So many killed by the monsters their neighbours had mutated into.

It had been a planet wide genocide.

He just kept walking.

In the distance another sandstorm was forming and Ty paid it little attention. He couldn't out run it and he had nowhere left to hide. There wasn't a single place left on Mars where the sand hadn't reached. Not a single building could offer him shelter from the harshness of the sand storms and no matter where he walked, he couldn't not escape it.

Around him the sand was beginning to shift and move, but he hardly noticed as he kept walking.

In the distance, the furthest gravestones had already been consumed by the storm but Ty didn't turn and run, he just kept walking. As he passed a gravestone, a skeleton hand broke through the sandy surface.

It was only then Ty stopped.

All around him, the dead were rising.

~*~

Ty woke with a start and looked round. Hoshi was on watch and all the other were still asleep. Ty shut his eyes for a second and took a deep breath. He'd just had the weirdest dream. He opened his eyes and slowly got to his feet and stretched. There was no way he was going to get back to sleep now. He nodded to Hoshi as moved across the room and sat down beside her.

"Ty," She greeted.

"Hoshi," Ty answered.

"Nightmare?" She questioned.

"Yeah," Ty answered, rubbing a hand over his face.

"Want talk about it?" Hoshi asked.

"Nope," Ty replied with a shake of his head. "I just want to forget it."

Hoshi nodded in understanding. She knew exactly how Ty felt, all of them had been suffering from night terrors.

"Status?" Ty asked after a moment of silence.

"Relaxed," Hoshi answered. "I haven't seen or heard anything. Nothing has been seen or heard all night in fact."

Ty nodded and got to his feet and moved over to the window and picked up the night vision binoculars and looked out across the colony.

"Not even a Lost Soul?" Ty questioned.

"No," Hoshi replied. "Nothing. It's strange, we haven't encountered anything for days now."

"Tell me about it," Ty muttered. "Not that I'm complaining, but it's kind of unnerving. Everything been so quiet and we haven't encountered or seen anything… It makes me wonder why. Are they planning something? Have they caught scent of other survivors and decided they're easier to catch… Or have they left for a different reason?"

"What other reason could there be?" Hoshi asked.

"What if they know something's coming?" Ty turned to look at her. "What if they know something's about to happen and they've all left to escape it?"

"What would they fear, Ty?" Hoshi asked. "What would they run from? Those monsters have destroyed everything! They fear nothing! We have weapons and yet they still come after us!"

"I don't know," Ty answered, with a shake of his head. "Maybe there's something in Kodos' book which will give us the answer."

Ty quickly hurried across the room away from the window and as a result missed the creature heading towards the colony in the distance. He quickly knelt beside his bag and began looking for Kodos' note book.

~*~

"It could be one of two things," Ty said as he stood beside Hoshi, the following morning as they waited for the others to pack up their stuff. "It's either a Hell Knight or a Pinky Demon. According to Kodos' notes, they are the only to creatures which will attack the others. The will literally attack anything as long as it moves."

Hoshi glanced at him, "It doesn't by any chance tell is how to kill them, does it?"

Ty shook his head.

"If only it was that easy," Ty sighs. "They do have a couple of weakness though. The Hell Knight's have very sensitive eye sight, if you can get them out in the open and into the light, they're basically blinds… But in the dark, they are the apex predator. As for the Pinky Demons, they're slower moving then the imps, so we'll be able to outrun them easier…"

"But?" Hoshi questioned, sensing there was more to it than that.

"They are impossible to hide from," Ty replied. "Their sense of smell is far stronger than any of the other creatures. Not matter what we use to cover our scent with, it won't work, they'll still be able to smell us. And nothing can stop them, they can smash their way through anything. Stone, metal, anything! If a Pinky Demon picks up our scent, we'll never be able to shake it off and no matter where we hide it will find us and it'll be able to get to us."

Hoshi gulped, Ty was sure she was about to say something, but was stopped by Johan joining them. Ty glanced at Johan, who was glancing round nervously and his grip on his pack strap was so tight the skim over his knuckles had gone white.

"Johan," Ty greeted quietly, trying not to startle him.

"We need to go," Johan said, turning to stare at Ty. "Can't you feel it?"

"Feel what?" Ty asked.

"Death," Johan answered, shuddering slightly. "Death is coming."

Hoshi and Ty glance at each other, when a scream sounded from behind them. It was Malakai who had screamed and it didn't take Ty long to track down the source of Malakai's fear. Crawling down the far wall was a large creature with six legs.

"Move!" Ty yelled drawing his weapon and firing at the creature. "Get out of here! Run!"

He killed the creature but more of them were appearing by the second. Soon the entire far wall was covered in the creatures. Slowly Ty backed up, still firing at the creatures and killing as any as he could. He reached the door the others had already left through and slammed the door shut as he exited the room.

He turned and run down the hallway after the others, when a noise from above him caught his attention. He looked up to see hundreds of the creatures descending down the walls of the stairwell from the upper-floors.

"Move faster!" Ty yelled ahead to the others. "Run!"

They made it out into the street and Ty looked back to see more of the creatures crawling down the side of the building.

"Keep going!" Ty yelled.

And the group ran as fast as they could, but every direction they turned there seemed to be more the creatures lying in wait for them. Until finally they group found themselves cornered, with the six legged creatures closing in from every direction.

They weren't going to get out of this alive.

When suddenly a figure dropped down in front of them from the roof of the building they were pressed up against and shot flames at the approaching creatures using a flamethrower like Ty had only ever seen in holo-videos, burning many of them and causing the ones who escaped the flames to flee.

The figure turned to face them and removed the scarf which had been covering his face. Ty couldn't believe it… It was another survivor. The man stared at them, his pale skin a strong contrast to his jet black hair and dark eyes. Ty cleared his throat and stared at the man nervously as he looked the small group over.

"Who are you?" Ty finally asked.

"My name is Khan."


	11. Chapter 11

"Hold your damn horses, for one God damn second!" McCoy cut Jim off. "You're telling me that Khan, the guy who tried to take out half of San Francisco with the ship he helped create, is the same Khan who rescued you on Mars."

"Yeah," Jim answers, with a single nod.

McCoy stares at him like he's grown a second head.

"Yeah," McCoy repeats. "That's all you've got to say."

"What else do you want me to say, Bones?" Jim demands. "It the truth! Khan saved my life…. If he hadn't saved me that day, I wouldn't be here now."

"But he's so…" McCoy trailed off.

"Evil?" Jim guessed. "Sinister? Unpleasant? Despicable? Uncaring?"

"Yeah," McCoy nods.

Jim snorts and shook his head.

"He never used to be like that," Jim sighs. "He changed… He believed himself to be superior to humans. Truth be told we are, but that doesn't mean we should act like it… Once upon a time the Martians were no different to humans, but our race was dying. Mars isn't like Earth, the conditions on Mars are harsh and unforgiving. And we were weak, so we created the twenty-fourth chromosome to make us stronger. That's is the only reason Martians are superior to Humans, but Khan, he didn't seem to understand that…"

"What happened, Jim?" McCoy asked.

"He wanted power," Jim answers. "He wanted to be worshipped. He wanted the humans to kiss the ground he walked on… He wanted to rule the world, literally… But we'll get to that later. After Khan rescued us, we went with him. There were other survivors, we weren't the only one to survive… I can't really explain what that felt like. Having been on our own for so long and to suddenly find out we weren't alone…"

Jim paused as he took a deep breath.

"There were three thousand, seven hundred and twenty-six of us in total… I couldn't believe it. I was so sure it was a dream and that I was going to wake up at any moment and it'd just be the nine of us once more, forging to survive and trying to out run anything we couldn't fight. For the first few weeks we were there, it almost felt like we were finally safe. But that illusion was shattered pretty quickly…"

~*~

Ty still couldn't believe his eyes are Khan gave him and his small group through the small colony the other survivors had built. The colony was nothing special, to be honest it was nothing more than a large campsite, surrounded by a large fence with multiple watch towers. But the place was full of life, unlike the streets and buildings Ty and his group had explored and hid in.

It was so overwhelming to be surrounded by other Martians again. There was hope for the survival of their race. There wasn't just nine of them left, there were thousands of them! As they continued to walk, a babies' cry sounded through the air and Ty turned and watched as a Martian father tended to his child.

Ty smiled. This was better than he could have ever hopped for. Khan continued to point thongs out to them and they were greeted by other survivors, who seemed just as shocked as they were, to see other survivors. Ty had heard others comment on how young they all were and how many couldn't believe they had survived so long on their own.

Finally they reached a tent and stopped. Khan turned and stared at the group before him and Ty stared back, unsure of why they had suddenly stopped. Moments later the entrance of the tent was pulled back and middle aged women stepped out of the tent. Ty glanced at her, there was something about her that was familiar, but he couldn't place what it was.

"Hello," She greeted them. "My name is Solveig."

Ty nor his small group answered, they simply waited for her to continue.

"I'm in charge of the records here," She explained. "As new arrivals, you'll need to fill out your details and they will be compared to the data files were covered from the colonies. If you have any surviving family members, you shall be reunited with them."

She held out a PADD and Ty took a step forward and took it from her.

"We won't have any," Ty told her.

"Excuse me?" Solveig asked.

"We won't have any surviving family members," Ty answered.

"You might," Solveig replied. "Other survivors were found from your colony."

"I doubt it," Ty shook his head. "We're from Tarsus IV."

Both Khan and Solveig froze at the name. Everyone knew Tarsus IV was where the outbreak had started. They hadn't believed for a second that anyone would have survived from that colony, let alone underage Martians.

"You're from Tarsus IV?" Solveig gasped.

"Yeah," Ty said, glancing up from the PADD he was filling in.

Khan and Solveig shared a glance, both completely shocked.

~*~

Screaming. That was what had woken Ty up. He quickly sat up and looked round the tent he and the others were in. More screams sounded and it was then Ty realised that the screams weren't one of his small group having a nightmare… The screams they were coming from outside. Around him, the others were waking, their sleep being disturbed by the screaming.

Quickly Ty got to his feet and headed towards the entrance to their tent and pulled back the flap. A flash lit up the early morning sky and Ty stumbled backwards as rubble and debris came raining down… They were under attack! Martians were running and yelling, carrying weapons and covered in blood. Ty quickly turned around and faced his small.

"Get your weapons!" Ty ordered.

They didn't need to be told twice. In less than a minute they were ready. Ty nodded to them as Hoshi joined Ty at the head of the group. They quickly got into formation, ensuring that the youngest were in the middle and protected, as held their weapons at the ready. It'd been little over a month since Khan had found them and this was the first time anything like this had happened.

Suddenly the side of their tent is ripped apart and they faced with a gigantic imp, which lets out an ear-splitting roar and charges towards them. Ty took aim and the dead body of the imp came to rest at their feet. Through the shredded material of the tent, Ty stared at the imps and other creatures, some of which he hadn't seen before, tearing through the camp.

"Come on," Ty instructed the others. "We need to get out of here."

Progress was slow getting across the camp, when so many imps and other nightmarish creatures were running wild, killing and destroying everything in sight. This time they couldn't hide and wait for the imps to move on… There was nowhere to hide. This wasn't a colony made of stone and metal, it was a campsite, made of cloth and material.

Playing dead wasn't an option either.

But they made. They survived and made it out in piece. They may have been covered in blood, but those injuries had already healed and they had killed anything which crossed their path as they fled. They were alive and as Ty looked over his small group, he knew that was all that mattered. He'd do whatever it took to keep them alive, just like he had been doing before they'd been found by Khan.

He'd give his life to keep them safe.

"Ty!" Hoshi suddenly grabbed Ty's arm. "Something's following us!"

Ty froze and looked round. In the distance a shadow was moving across the landscape towards them and whatever it was, it was too large to be a normal Martian.

"What is that thing?" Xavier demanded.

"I don't know," Ty answered honestly, it was too far away to be able to match it to a description from Kodos handbook. "But we can't let it catch us, whatever it may be. We need to keep moving."

And they did. They moved as quickly and as quietly as they could. They moved across the sandy terrain, towards a rocky incline, which led to the base of some mountains. Going through the mountains was a risk. There were some many caves and hollows were imps and other creatures could be waiting to jumps out and strike, but it also offered them plenty of hiding places, so it was a risk Ty was willing to take.

As they ventured into the foothills of the mountains, Hoshi looked back. The large creature which had been heading in their direction was getting closer and closer. It'd catch up with them in a matter of hours. Hoshi looked round to find Ty watching it too. There gaze met and Hoshi didn't like the look in Ty's eyes, it sent a shiver down her spine.

Ty was planning something and whatever it was, she and the others weren't going to like it.


	12. Chapter 12

 

"Climb," Ty ordered, as the others moved ahead of him.

They were stood at the bottom of a cliff and the only way they could go was up. The younger members were having trouble with the climb, while the older members found it slightly easier, but none of them were particularly good climbers. Ty glanced over his shoulder. Whatever it was that was following them, it was getting closer.

"Come on!" Ty exclaimed. "We need to move faster!"

Ty waited until the others had climbed a far distance up, before he started climbing. He out of the entire group had the most experience climbing and if something went wrong and one of them fell… Ty didn't want to think about that, because of one of them fell their chances of survival wouldn't be very high.

The fall wouldn't kill them, but whatever was following them would.

As Ty neared the halfway point of the climb. He paused and looked back. For the first time the creature was close enough that he could see it clearly. Ty gulped he knew what it was, he recognised it from the handbook… It was one of the deadliest creatures Kodos had written about and the picture Kodos had drawn matched it perfectly.

It was a Pinky Demon.

But it was moving much faster than Kodos had described. Ty quickly began climbing once more, above him Hoshi had already reached the top and was helping the younger members of their group. Ty glanced back one last time… It would no doubt catch them before nightfall if it could climb the cliff like they had.

Finally Ty reached the top and he and Hoshi shared a look, before they began moving once more. They would have run but the rocky terrain was unstable under foot and moving too fast threatened to cause a rock slide. Their footsteps seemed to echo loudly in the mountains around them and Ty winced at the sounds.

"Head deeper into the mountains," Ty called forward to where Hoshi was leading the group. "We might be able to lose it."

But Ty knew they wouldn't be able to.

It was a Pinky Demon, it was tracking them by smell not sight.

Ty had no choice, he was going to have to try and trick the creature in to following him and him alone. If he could lead it off in the wrong direction and stay ahead of it, by the time it caught up with him and killed him, Hoshi and the others would be far away and their scents swept away by the wind.

It wasn't a great plan, but it was the only one he had.

Up ahead Hoshi had already began to lead their small group deeper into the mountains, along a narrow mountain path and it wasn't long before the path slit in two. This was Ty's chance. This was where he could lead the Pinky Demon in another direction and away from his group. He could keep them safe.

And so Ty stopped walking and watched as they disappeared along the path, before turning his attention to the path they had just walked along and waited for the Pinky Demon to appear. He held his weapon at the ready, because he wasn't going down without a fight.

~*~

Ty fired his weapon and watched as the force of the impact sent the creature stumbling backwards, but it didn't take it long to recover and charge towards Ty, who fired and again and watched as blood the colour of a midnight sky erupted from the wound, but still the creature did stop and Ty was forced to turn and run.

Oh, right, Pinky Demons were almost impossible to kill.

Running, Ty didn't even bother to look over his shoulder to see how close behind him the creature was. He didn't want to know. He just kept running, leading the creature in the opposite direction to which the others had gone. If he could only lead the creature a couple of miles it'd be enough… By the time the Pinky Demon tracked down the others, they would be many miles away and their scents would have been washed away by the storm that was being to form on the horizon.

Suddenly Ty was sent forward, flying through the air as a strong force collided with his back, sensing pain shorting through his body. He crashed to the ground and quickly rolled on to his back and grabbed his weapon. He fired three shots at the creature towering over him, causing it to howl in pain and distracting it long enough to get to his feet and run once more.

He gasped as he run, trying to blink the tears from his eyes as he did so. It hurt so much. His skin felt like it was on fire, as it slowly stitched itself back together. Ty suddenly stumbled and lost his balance, which resulted in him tumbling down a steep incline and landing with a sickening crack on the rocky ground far below.

Letting out a groan, Ty lay their stunned for a moment and watched the Pinky Demon stare down at him from above. It let out an enraged roar before leaping from the top of the incline. Ty eyes widened and he rolled out of the way just in time, as the creature landed where he'd previously been lying.

Scrambling to his feet, Ty took off running once more. Most of his injuries had already healed, but that didn't stop the bone deep ache which filled his entire body. To make matters worse the fall had reopened the slowly healing wounds on his back and the pain was causing dark spots to dance before his eyes.

But he couldn't stop running.

He had to lead the creature ad far away as he could, before it finally caught and he just couldn't get away. He was going to die, that much he knew. He just had to make his death worth something. And if he could, he drag the Pinky Demon down with him. Without warning he was thrown forward again and his head cracked as it made impact with a stone.

Slowly Ty rolled on to his back, trying to blink through the daze he found himself in. Only to have blood and a looming black shadow fill his vision. The looming shadow suddenly lunged forward and Ty didn't have the strength or coordination to move out of the way of the strike sent his way. The pain almost caused his to blackout, as the creatures claws tore into his chest and throat.

Ty gurgled as his own blood got stuck in his throat and his eyes widened in fear as he stared up at the monstrous creature above him. He was going to die here. That creature was going to rip him to pieces… But at least he could die knowing, his sacrifice was worth something. He saved his little group. They'd gotten away. They were safe and would live to see another day. So dying here, was only a small price to pay. He shut his eyes and waited for the killing strike.

~*~

_Ty was running. He couldn't see where he was going, as the sand storm which raged around him blocked out everything. He knew he was being followed, he could sense the dead following him. He knew they were dead, he'd seen the decompressing figures before the storm had hit and he had no intention of being caught by them._

_But there had been so many graves. Even now as he ran through the sand storm, shadowy graves loomed out of the flying sand every now and again as he drew to close to them in his half blind run, in a desperate attempt to escape. There were so many graves and why wouldn't there be? Everyone was dead._

_He was the only one left._

_He kept running and finally he found the sand storm growing weaker and weaker, until he was clear of the storm completely. He glanced over his shoulder, but none of the dead had followed him out of the storm. He glanced round, trying to work out where he was. But none of his surroundings looked familiar._

_This was a part of Mars he'd never travelled to before._

_A flickering light in the distance caught his attention and he turned towards it. But how was that possible? He was the only one left alive on the planet, so where had the light come from? Was it possible he wasn't the only one left?_

_Looking back at the storm one last time Ty began walking towards the flickering light. It didn't take him long to reach the source of the light. The light was attached to a door leading underground and there was a small keypad attached to it, but whatever was written on the keys, Ty couldn't understand it. It was like it was written in another language…_

_But there was only once language spoken on Mars._

_He looked round, not far from the door was a massive crater… Almost like a mining site. Ty looked down at the ground and nudged the dirt with his boot. Why would anyone mine here? The ground was useless and tough, but at the same time crumbled to dust, it was so dry. There was nothing useful here, even if you drug for miles, there'd be nothing of use._

_Glancing back at the sand storm in the distance, Ty eyes widened as he noticed the dead had began to emerge from the storm and he quickly turned his attention to the door in front of him and more importantly the keypad. Ty knew it must have some type of code that needed to be typed in order for the door to open, but Ty had no idea what the symbols on the keypad meant._

_Suddenly the blinking red light above the keypad went out and was replaced by a green light a second later and the door slowly opened. Ty didn't hesitate, he stepped through the open door and onto the stairs below it, pulling the door shut behind him._


	13. Chapter 13

The first thing Ty became aware of as he caught his way out of the darkness of unconsciousness was the warmth from a burning fire on his face. Slowly he blinked his eyes open against the orange light and black dots danced in front of his eyes. With a groan, Ty rolled onto his back. His whole body ached, it felt like he had tumbled down the side of a mountain only to land on a bed of solid stone.

Ty suddenly bolted upright as the memories of what happened hit him.

"Easy," A voice said from across the fire. "I was nearly too late to save you."

Ty looked round wildly, only to calm down slightly as he caught sight of the women sitting on the other side of the fire.

It was Solveig.

"Solveig," Ty nodded to her.

She nodded slightly in return, before glancing towards the mouth of the cave they were in.

"I could not find your friends," She said. "When I came upon the beast, it had almost killed you. It took your injuries many hours to heal. There were times during the night when I thought I had been too late."

"How long?" Ty asked.

"Two thirds of a day since I found you," Solveig answered.

Ty nodded and moved to get up, only to almost fall over as he legs gave out as he tried to stand.

"You need rest," Solveig scolded him. "You are not yet fully recovered."

"I can't," Ty shook his head. "I have to find the others…"

"And I will help you find them once you have recovered," Solveig promised. "But you will be no use to them dead. In your current state you will not make it far and will be easy pickings for other beasts who pick up your scent. You must regain your strength."

"What happened to the beast?" Ty asked.

"I killed it," Solveig told him. "It was much harder to kill than anything I have ever faced before. I was forced to cut it into pieces."

Ty stared at Solveig in horror.

"Do not worry," Solveig smiled. "It is dead now and it'll be staying that way."

"Are you sure?" Ty asked, glancing round nervously like he was expecting it to jump out on him any second.

"Yes," Solveig nodded. "I burnt it. The last of its hide is burning now."

Ty stared at the fire and then looked at Solveig.

"Won't the scent attract others?" Ty asked.

"I've killed everything that has come close," Solveig reassures him. "And I will continue to do so."

"Have you seen any others?" Ty asked. "How many survived?"

"I do not know," Solveig answered.

~*~

Solveig was walking slightly ahead of Ty as they tried to pick up a trail left by the others, whom Ty had nearly lost his life saving. So far they had found nothing. It had taken two days for Ty to recover fully, so they had a lot of ground to catch up. And all Ty could do was hope that the others hadn't been killed. That he hadn't saved them from one death, only to send them straight into another.

Suddenly Solveig stopped walking and crouched down, signalling for Ty to do the same. Crawling forward, Ty stopped shoulder to shoulder with Solveig. He scanned the open area before them, but nothing caught his eye. The desert ground was completely still. There was nothing moving and no sign that anything had passed through the area recently.

"What is it?" Ty whispered.

"Be quiet," Solveig hissed.

She pointed to something in the distance and Ty followed her direction, but he couldn't see anything.

"I don't see anything," Ty told her.

Solveig glanced at Ty and raised an eyebrow, before she turned her attention to whatever it was she could see that Ty could not.

"Stay here," Solveig ordered.

Ty watched as Solveig moved forward heading in the direction of whatever it was she had seen. He glanced around every now and again, to make sure nothing caught him off guard. Everything was unnaturally still and quiet. Taking a deep breath through his nose, JT tried to pick up on any scents which lingered in the area, but again there was nothing.

Suddenly a hand clamped itself over Ty's mouth and he was pulled backwards.

"Shh," A voice whispered in his ear. "It's Khan."

The hand let him go and Ty spun round to find himself face to face with Khan. Khan glanced past Ty and caught sight of Solveig in the distance. He nodded to himself and then turned his attention back to Ty.

"Where are your friends?" Khan asked.

"I don't know," Ty answered. "Solveig is helping me find them."

Khan nodded, "Then you will find them. There is no better tracker and hunter than Solveig. She keeps her skills hidden, but there is no one better."

"She saved my life," Ty turned to watch Solveig, who had become a spot in the distance.

Khan looked around and drew a knife. He held it loosely in one hand and pulled Ty behind him with the other. Ty looked round, but he couldn't see anything. Khan suddenly turned and threw his knife. It sailed through the air and Ty watched as it seemed to embed itself in thin air. A couple of moments later an imp like creature Ty had never seen before slowly came into view. There hadn't been anything like it in Kodos' handbook either.

~*~

"What was that?" Ty demanded, once Khan had killed the imp like creature.

"We don't know," Khan answered, wiping the creature's blood from his knife.

"How?" Ty asked. "How was it invisible?"

"Camouflage," Khan explained. "They can manipulate their bodies' chemistry in such a way they are able to blend into any background without being seen."

"You saw it," Ty pointed out.

"I have been hunting them," Khan replied. "I have learnt how to see them even when they are camouflaged."

"Teach me," Ty demanded. "I need to know how to see them. I can track and kill other creature, but an enemy I cannot see…"

"Solveig will teach you," Khan nodded towards her, as she returned.

Ty turned and watched Solveig approach. She was covered in blood and her weapon, which looked like a sword but had a smooth curved edge on one side and a flat jagged edge on the other, glistened in the sunlight, blood splattered along its edges.

"Khan," Solveig greeted Khan as she drew level with them.

"Solveig," Khan replied with a slight nod.

"Any other survivors?" Solveig asked, moving forward and resting a hand on Ty's shoulder as she watched Khan closely.

Khan shook his head, "I escaped the attack alone. You and Ty are the first I have come across. Any others who escaped will head for the northern plains. That was what was agreed should an attack ever take place."

Solveig nodded, "We will head that way once we have accomplished what we need to do here. Ty and his group were never made aware of the agreement."

Khan stared at Solveig for a moment before he turned away.

"I will head west along the mountains," Khan said. "But in three days I will head north. If I have no found them in that time, then they are lost."

"No," Ty shook his head. "We survived for months on our own before you found us. They are not dead!"

Khan glanced at Ty, "Then we will find them… But you do not come from this part of Mars, Ty. The monsters here are slightly different to what you have faced in the colonies you have been to. The monsters have evolved. They are learning how to hunt, how to become better predators. They are becoming harder to kill and harder to track. Some we cannot see until they attack, while others can hide their scents."

Ty stared straight at Khan.

"You underestimate them," Ty almost growled. "They are alive."


	14. Chapter 14

“We walked for days after that,” Jim explained, staring down at his hands, still twirling the coin he held. “Eventually it was Solveig who found their trail. When we finally caught up with them, they had hidden themselves deep within a cave system and set up any traps they could with the resources they could spare. Some were quite impressive, I have to admit.

“Solveig and I trekked far below the surface and eventually we found them in a cavern with its own water source. Xavier was on watch when we found them and Solveig appearing beside him startled him so badly, he shot at Solveig. She simply ducked out the way and I was still behind her and the shot went over both our heads, but the noise… It echoed and the cave system just seemed to amplify the sound.

“It was all hands on deck, so to speak, after that,” Jim smiled slightly. “We all knew that the sound of that shot was going to attract everything from miles round. It didn’t take long to pack up and get the hell out of there, but we weren’t quick enough. Luckily it was only imps we encountered, they were easy enough to kill. Unfortunately, Itzel was injured before we managed to kill them all. Itzel was the second youngest after Malakai… The injury was deep, it healed in no time. But her screams… They haunted my dreams for weeks after-”

Suddenly the doors to the cell they were in was thrown open and both Jim’s and McCoy’s attention snapped to the new arrivals. Several guards stood in the doorway surrounding a woman dressed in a uniform consisting of a long black coat, similar to the coat Khan had been wearing when they’d first encountered him face to face… Well not the first time Jim had encountered him, just the rest of crew of the Enterprise.

“Captain Kirk,” The woman greeted Jim, ignoring McCoy completely. “It’s a… Pleasure, to make your acquaintance.”

“I’d say likewise,” Jim replied. “But that’d be a lie.”

The woman laughed and gestured to the guards around her, they quickly moved forward and Jim eyed them warily as they approached him. One of the guards broke away from the group and approached McCoy. The guard raised their weapon and levelled it at McCoy’s head.

“Just a little incentive to stop you from escaping,” The woman told him. “I know all about you Captain Kirk, you have quite the reputation as an escape artist.”

“And how do you know about me, Ms…?” Jim asked.

“John Gill is most talkative, when given the right motivation,” The woman answered. “As for who I am, Captain… Let’s just say, I’m an interested party.”

“Interested in what?” Jim questioned, glancing at McCoy as the guards unlocked his chains from the wall.

McCoy watched as Jim let the guards lead him to the centre of the cell, where they forced him to his knees and connected the chains to the floor. All the while, Jim kept his gaze fixed on the woman standing in the doorway, staring at her with an odd look in his eyes. The woman just continued to smile at Jim, her eyes holding a sadistic glint.

“I know you,” Jim said, frowning slightly.

“Indeed you do, Captain,” The woman smiled. “But you can ponder that another time. Right now, you have information I need. I’m I correct in thinking you won’t give it to me willingly?”

Jim narrowed his eyes slightly and glanced at the guards surrounding him.

“Demands,” Jim finally answered. “What do you want to know?”

Without warning one of the guards punched Jim, causing his head to snap to the side and blood to drip from his cheek and nose. Jim turned his attention back to the guard who had punched him, before spitting out a mouthful of blood, standing the guards uniform. The guard let out an enraged shout and lunged at Jim.

“Enough!” The woman yelled, but the guard didn’t stop.

When the other guards finally managed to pull the enraged guard off Jim, Jim’s face was covered in blood, but there wasn’t a single cut or any sign of injury. McCoy glared at Jim as he sat up and laughed, before turning to the side and spitting out another mouthful of blood. Jim turned his gaze to McCoy and saw the glare being sent in his direction.

“Don’t worry, Bones,” Jim sent a bloody grin at McCoy. “Whatever they do to me, doesn’t hurt for long.”

~*~

It seemed like hours before the guards realised they weren’t going to get any of the information they wanted from Jim. By the time they left, the hard floor was covered in blood, but Jim didn’t have a single scratch on him, although you wouldn’t have been able to tell due to his blood covered skin and stained and torn cloths.

“You said you knew her,” McCoy said after a moment, when it became clear Jim wasn’t going to break the silence they’d fallen into after the departure of the guards.

“I’ve seen her somewhere before,” Jim answered, glancing at McCoy. “I can’t remember where or when, but I have definitely seen her face before.”

“How is that possible?” McCoy asked. “John Gill was the first person to make contact with this planet and he was sent here to simply observe and Starfleet been monitoring this planet since it was discovered, they’d have known of any outside influences.”

“I don’t know, Bones,” Jim replied, moving his arms into a more comfortable position and making the chains rattle as he did so.

The two of them fell into another silence and Jim shut his eyes and tried to remember where he’d seen the man face before, where he knew him from… But he just couldn’t remember. A Martians memory was different to a humans and was able to remember much more over a much longer period of time and Jim had been alive for a long time by human terms, so he could be forgiven for forgetting the odd detail.

For all he knew the woman could have been as insignificant as a face he had passed when traveling on a shuttle or someone he’d walked past on a street… But the woman had admitted they knew each other, so it had to be more than that. Suddenly Jim’s head snapped up, as a distant memory pushed itself to the front of his mind.

“Khan,” Jim said out loud.

“Khan?” McCoy asked.

Jim nodded, “That woman…”

“Wasn’t Khan,” McCoy finished, peering at Jim closely… Maybe he’d been hit on the head harder than it appeared.

“I know that, Bones!” Jim exclaimed. “I’m not an idiot.”

“Could have fooled me,” McCoy muttered.

Jim sent a glare in McCoy’s direction, before turning his attention to the door to their cell.

“That woman, her name is Sarina Kaur,” Jim told McCoy. “Or that was her name when I first encountered her.”

“Doctor Sarina Kaur, the woman in charge of the Chrysalis Project?” McCoy questioned. “The Project that created the Augments?”

“There’s no such thing as the Augments, Bones,” Jim sighed. “They never succeeded in creating genetically engineered superhuman’s. The Augments were just Martians using a rumour to hide their true identities. Khan believed himself a king amongst human-kind, to be worshipped and treated like a god… But there were experiments, but they weren’t done by Doctor Sarina Kaur and the Chrysalis Project. The experiments were done by the Martians on Human… Khan wanted to see if it was possible to attach the twenty-fourth chromosome to the human’s twenty-three. Doctor Sarina Kaur was injected with Khan’s blood, it was more like a transfusion, and it worked.”

“She has twenty-four chromosomes?” McCoy stared at Jim.

Jim nodded, “Khan’s blood slowly infected the rest of her cells with the twenty-fourth chromosome. She’s the first of many who were turned by Khan and the other Martians, they were trying to rebuild the Martians race… And it was only took a matter of weeks for them to realise they had to select humans without a certain gene to stop those they were changing turning into mutants. Then the first group took control and then another, billions of people were enslaved…

“I tried to save as many as I could… I killed my own kind, Bones! I tried to stop them, but millions of people died at the hands of those tyrants. Why couldn’t they understand? Why couldn’t they see? We were just like humans, we originally had twenty-three chromosomes. The twenty-fourth chromosome was synthetic, created by Martian scientists after a plague nearly wiped out our enter race! So many people died, Bones, I couldn’t save them,” Jim bowed his head, as tears rolled down his cheeks.

The way so many had been killed, at the hands of his kind, had been brutal to put it nicely. He seen so much and even now he couldn’t decide which was more horrifying, watching his kind be killed by mutants or his kind killing others in way nobody deserved to die, when they refused to bow down and worship someone who considered themselves superior. The executions and the massacres… It had seemed like an endless bloodbath at the time.

“It wasn’t your fault, Jim,” McCoy said, wishing he could reach out and comfort Jim.

Jim just shook his head.

“After Solveig and I found the others, we travelled to the Northern plains,” Jim said, changing the subject.

~*~

A look of surprise passed over Khan’s face as Solveig, Ty and the rest of Tarsus Nine arrived at the new camp. It seemed Ty was correct, they had indeed survived just like Ty had said they would. He had to admit he was impressed that the small group of children could survive for so long and through so much on their own. He raised an eyebrow slightly as he noticed Solveig place a protective hand on Ty’s shoulder, upon seeing Khan’s gaze fixed on him.

Ty glanced up at Solveig as he felt a hand land on his shoulder and saw that her attention was fixed on something across from them. He followed her gaze and found Khan standing there. He nodded to Ty when their eyes met, before walking off deeper into thru camp which had been set up. Solveig squeezed Ty’s shoulder as she tracked Khan’s movements.

“I want you to promise me something, Ty,” She said.

“What?” Ty asked, looking back at Solveig.

“Trust your instincts,” Solveig answered. “And do not follow orders blindly.”

Ty frowned at Solveig, “Is this about Khan?”

“Just promise me, Ty,” Solveig replied.

“I promise,” Ty nodded.

Solveig squeezed Ty’s shoulder again, before dropping her hand from his shoulder. Ty glanced at Solveig and she smiled at him, before looking round.

“Come,” Solveig said. “We need to find a place to rest.”

Ty and the rest of the Tarsus Nine followed Solveig through the camp, which was noticeably smaller than the first camp they’d arrived at with Khan and Ty couldn’t bring himself to ask how many hadn’t survived the attack.

“Ty,” Hoshi suddenly said from Ty’s left.

“Hoshi,” Ty replied. “What is it?”

“Xavier,” Hoshi answered.

“What about him?” Ty asked, glancing over his shoulder and seeing Xavier at the back of their small group, out of earshot.

“He’s capable of mutating” Hoshi told him.

Ty almost stopped walking, but Hoshi gripped his arm and almost dragged him along to keep them out of Xavier’s hearing range.

“You’re sure?” Ty questioned.

“I’m certain,” Hoshi nodded. “When we were attacked by the imps, one of them shot something at him… I over heard survivors from the other colonies talking, the imps shot their tongues at those capable of mutating and the tongues burrowed into their necks, infecting them and causing them to mutate.”

Ty looked back at Xavier.

“Then we’ll just have to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Ty stated.

“We should tell someone, Ty,” Hoshi said.

“We’ve survived this long without it happening, Hoshi,” Ty replied. “He won’t mutate unless he’s infected. There must be others here, who have escaped without being infected.”

Hoshi looked back at Xavier this time.

“If he mutates…” Hoshi began. “I… I couldn’t kill him.”

“Hoshi,” Ty said seriously. “If he becomes infected and he mutates, I will kill him. He’s the closest thing I have to family, you all are. But if he mutates, he won’t be Xavier anymore… I won’t let him harm any of you, he wouldn’t want us to let him live, if he it meant he’d kill those mindless monsters... Monsters he’s lost his entire family to.”

 


	15. Chapter 15

Ty stumbled backwards, as Solveig’s kick made contact with his side. He was only just quick enough to raise his training weapon, to block the strike aimed at his chest and before he even had time to process Solveig’s next move, he was lying flat on his back staring up at the sky. Panting, he forced himself to sit up. He watched as Solveig twirled her weapon and smiled down at him, pride shining in her eyes even though Ty had lost yet another fight to her.

“You have improved greatly,” Solveig told him, offering him a hand, which Ty gladly took.

“I lost,” Ty pointed out, still trying to catch his breath once Solveig had pulled him to his feet.

“I am old enough to be your mother,” Solveig replied. “You are thirteen. I’ve been training and fighting longer than you’ve been alive.”

Ty just nodded and Solveig offered him a bottle of water, which he gladly took. Solveig smiled at him, before reaching forward and ruffing his sweat drenched hair. Ty’s gaze snapped to her, but Solveig had turned away and was walking towards the edge of their training area.

“That was impressive,” A voice said. “Even I can’t hold my own against Solveig for that long.”

“Hey, Hoshi,” Ty greeted, turning and smiling at her.

Hoshi grinned at him, before gesturing for him to follow her. Following after Hoshi, Ty discovered much to his surprise they were leaving the camp and the slight safety it offered. They had been living on the Northern plains for many months now and they’d yet to be discovered, thanks to the scent posts which had been set up around the camp, to disguise their scents and keep them hidden from the creatures with a sharper sense of smell.

They’d been walking for a good few minutes and Ty looked down at the ground as they walked. The sand shifted under his feet and moved in the wind, it was mesmerizing. But he quickly switched his attention to the area around, looking for any movement. They had left the safety of the camp and anything nearby would be would be able to pick up their scent… But Hoshi wouldn’t have left the camp without good reason.

Eventually Hoshi stopped walking and Ty glanced at her upon seeing they had stopped at the top of a ridge.

“Hoshi…” Ty muttered.

“Just watch,” Hoshi nodded towards the sky on the horizon.

The sun was setting, filling the sky with a peaceful blue glow.

“When I was younger,” Hoshi began talking. “I used to sit on the roof of my house and watch the sun set. I used to count the stars as they appeared, until I lost count or my mother called be inside. Sometimes my father would sit with me and tell tales of faraway planets and the adventures we’d have there… We’d make up languages that they would to speak.”

Ty reached out and squeezed Hoshi’s shoulder.

“This is the first time in a long time, it’s been safe enough to watch the sunset,” Hoshi carried on talking. “Since the day it began, we’ve been running, fighting, surviving… There was no time to stop and admire the beauty of the setting sun. I find myself missing the small things, things I took for granted, now I have the chance to slow down and realise what I’m missing.”

Ty nodded.

“A part of me still wishes that this is all just an elaborate joke,” Hoshi shut her eyes as tears rolled down her cheeks and her shoulders began to shake. “And at any moment, someone’s going to turn around and yell ‘Surprise! We fooled you!’ and my family will be there waiting for me… We’ll all laugh and tell stories about this over family dinners for years to come. But I watched-”

Hoshi was suddenly cut off as the two of them were grabbed from behind.

“There is a reason no one is allowed to leave the camp, unless given permission,” Khan’s voice hissed in their ears. “I could have quite easily been a mutant and you’d both be in serious trouble.”

“We’re capable of looking after ourselves,” Ty answered, struggling to free himself from Khan’s grip.

“You are not just endangering yourselves, but the entire camp,” Khan continued, ignoring Ty’s struggles. “Until you can learn that your actions have consequences, you’ll both be under guard.”

~*~

_He was stood at the bottom of a small flight of steps. One the other side of the door above him, he could hear the dead clawing at it, trying to find a way inside. Looking up at the door, Ty thanked whatever higher power had unlocked the door for him and had now sealed it, saving him from the dead which roamed outside… Or had he been saved?_

_He turned his attention to the darkened hallway he found himself standing in. He had a choice, walk down the hallway and see where it led, or turn around and walk back up the steps and try and open the door and face the dead on the other side. There was no guarantee the place he no found himself in was any safer than the outside._

_The keypad had been covered in strange symbols… Symbols he didn’t know. But that was impossible, only one language was spoken on Mars and he’d never come across any sort of code that had looked like that…_

_So what was this place?_

_Examine the walls of the hallway, they appeared Martian in design, but it was like something completely different had inhabited it… Like a house built in a certain style at a certain time, but the décor being from a completely different era. The walls were covered by a grid of metal, unlike anything Ty had seen before and the wiring was thick and… Un-Martian._

_Taking a cautious step forward, Ty began to make his way along the hallway, his footsteps echoing oddly in his ears as he walked. It didn’t take him to long to reach the end of the hallway and to a room with a table at its centre and its walls covered in weapons and tools. Stepping into the room, Ty noticed the table was covered in bones, rocks and tools._

_Stopping next to the table, he picked up a skull, which was most definitely Martian and very, very old. He looked round the room at the tools which lined the walls, before looking back down at the skull in his hand… Had, whoever this place belonged to, been digging for the bones? But why? Every Martian knew their history, history which dated back to the formation of their planet… So why would anyone dig it up?_

_Unless they weren’t Martian..._

_Ty frowned and set the skull down. Who would come to Mars? Their closest neighbour with intelligent life was Earth… And Earth was many centuries away from the technology needed to travel to another planet… They hadn’t even created a mode of transport which didn’t require horses and what many would consider slave labour yet._

_Stepping away from the table, Ty continued walking and he soon found himself in another hallway and a coppery scent filled the air. He scrunched his nose up at the smell, but he continued walking. He finally reached another room, only to find the room was already inhabited…_

_A dead, decapitated body lay on the floor before him._

Ty woke with a start and sat bolt upright, breathing heavily. He’d had another dream and just like the last one, it had filled with a sense of dread and fear. He shut his eyes and tried to calm his breathing. He seemed to have inherited his father’s gift of dreaming… All Martians dreamt when they slept, but his father had dreamt of the past.

So was he dreaming about the future?

Ty opened his eyes and run a hand through his hair. Many Martians had gifts, some stronger than others. The most powerful Martian in Tarsus IV had been an old lady, who could summon the souls of the dead and wield them like a weapon if she so wished to. Glancing at the entrance to the tent he was in, Ty could see a Martian standing guard, just like Khan had told them there would be.

He needed to run, to burn of some of the restless energy which gripped him, but he doubted his guard would be too happy with that and there was only so many laps of the camp Ty could run before he yearned to run further, across the sand and into the wilderness. So with a sigh, he lay back down and started up at the tent roof above him, it was going to be a long night.

~*~

Ty shifted uneasily from foot to foot as he and his small group waited for Solveig. A few weeks ago, a small group of Martians, led by Khan, had left the camp and travelled to Tarsus II. In the days and weeks that followed more and more Martians left the camp and travelled to Tarsus II, to join Khan and the group that had left with him.

He knew Khan and his group had worked tirelessly to track down and kill every mutant within the colony walls, before setting up scent markers around the edge of the colony just like they had done with the camp, which wasn’t even a camp anymore. Everything had been taken down, packed away and taken to Tarsus II. Ty and his group, along with Solveig and a few others were the last to leave and travel to Tarsus II… And Ty was nervous.

This would be the first time he’d set foot within a colony since he and the others had been rescued by Khan.

It had felt safe in the camp. There were no tall buildings and shadow filled alley ways for mutants to hide in. Every direction he looked, he could see for miles and there had been few places a mutant to hide. If a mutant had approached the camp, it would have been spotted long before it became a threat… But in the colonies, it was easy for them to be taken by surprise. Ty and the others had been caught unaware more than once.

It just didn’t feel safe.

“Ty,” A quiet voice said from beside him.

“What is it, Itzel?” Ty asked softly, turning to the girl who was stood beside him.

“Why do we have to leave?” She asked. “It’s safe here.”

Ty sighed and knelt down beside her, adjusting the pack on his back as he did so.

“We’re running out of supplies,” Ty answered. “The trip to the colonies and back is taking too long and every time someone leaves, they run the risk of something following them back, even with the scent blockers. It’s easier to move to where the supplies are.”

“But it’s not safer, is it?” Itzel questioned.

“Khan said it is safe,” Ty replied.

Itzel nodded and Ty smiled at her, before getting back to his feet and taking her by the hand. Alongside them, Hoshi was carrying Malakai while Xavier was standing with a hand resting on Alize’s shoulder and Johan and Blaise were stood next to Solveig.

“Where’s Zina?” Ty suddenly asked, realising she wasn’t with them.

Hoshi looked round, everything had been packed away leaving nothing but empty landscape in its wake.

“Zina?” Hoshi called out, desperation and worry clear in her tone.

They could afford to stay here for much longer. The scent blockers which had surrounded their camp had been taken down, leaving their scents free to travel on the wind. Anything down wind of them would easily be able to pick up their scents and follow it all the way to its source…

“Zina?” Ty called out.

“Ty!” Zina’s voice suddenly called out. “Help me!”

Ty looked round, but there was no one in sight.

“Zina?” Ty called again, moving away from the group trying to locate where Zina’s voice was coming from. “Where are you?”

“Down here,” She answered.

“Down wher-” Ty began to ask, only to be cut off as the ground beneath his feet gave way.

He landed with a sickening crutch and he let out a hiss of pain, as he but his tongue to stop himself from crying out. Further down the tunnel from where he had landed, Zina was standing under another hole, one she had clearly fallen through just like Ty had.

“Ty!” She called out rushing over to him and grabbing hold of his arm and pulling him to his feet.

Only as Ty tried to put pressure on his injured leg, it sent another wave of pain straight up his body. Looking down answered why. His rough landing had snapped the bone in his leg a couple of inches above his ankle, which wouldn’t usually be a problem as his body healed almost instantly… Only while the brake was clean, it was also protruding.

Ty had seen a lot of gory sights, far too many… He’d seen fellow Martians being ripped apart. He’d seen the lifeless body of his mother being dragged away and the crunching of bones as bodies were feed upon. He had seen the devastation left in the wake of the imps and other monstrous creatures and he had killed, felt blood hitting his face from the arterial spray and washed the grim remains from his person…

But seeing his own bone sticking out of his leg, blood oozing as his body tried to heal the wound around the protruding bone, was enough to make his stomach turn. His wound wouldn’t heal until the bone was forced back into its rightful place, a process which would be just as painful as the break itself.

“Ty,” Zina suddenly whispered, panic making her voice shrill. “There’s something down here.”

 


End file.
